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Micah Hanks and the Smithsonian Anti-Giant Conspiracy

8/1/2013

68 Comments

 
According to Coast to Coast AM, Micah Hanks is a self-proclaimed “but not self-righteous” skeptic who explores “the more esoteric realms of the strange and unusual,” including how UFOs, which represent non-human intelligences, will not be so mysterious when human technology catches up to their imaginary technology in the UFO singularity. Hanks describes himself as “the mouth of the South” and as “open minded, but skeptical.” I imagine that’s what makes him “not self-righteous”—he’s willing to believe some things that lack conventional evidence, like ghosts, incorporeal non-human intelligences, time travel, etc.   

Why does this matter? Well, yesterday Hanks published an essay in which he described the article I posted earlier in the week about the allegation that the Smithsonian is covering up the discovery of the skeletons of “giants.” Hanks agreed with most of the points I made before deciding that even though I made logical claims they must nonetheless be wrong because giants are real. In doing so, he cited actual documents from the Smithsonian, which in turn actually support the case I was trying to make earlier in the week.

…what may be the very best evidence of curiously large skeletons from America’s past were published more than a century ago by the very target of the so-called conspiracies: The Smithsonian Institute (sic).

Hanks cites the Twelfth Annual Report of the Smithsonian’s Bureau of Ethnology, published in 1894 and covering the years 1890-1891, which reported the 1889 discovery of a “giant” skeleton in Mound 12 on the Holston River’s Long Island in Roane County, Tennessee. In nearby mounds, excavators found several skeletons they considered too uninteresting to describe in detail. Cultural artifacts found in these mounds indicate to modern scholars they were of Mississippian origin, and the succeeding Cherokee considered the island and its mounds sacred. In Mound 12, the Smithsonian men found a layer of mussel shells.

Underneath the layer of shells the earth was very dark and appeared to be mixed with vegetable mold to the depth of 1 foot. At the bottom of this, resting on the original surface of the ground, was a very large skeleton lying horizontally at full length. Although very soft, the bones were sufficiently distinct to allow of careful measurement before attempting to remove them. The length from the base of the skull to the bones of the toes was found to be 7 feet 3 inches. It is probable, therefore, that this individual when living was fully 7½ feet high. At the head lay some small pieces of mica and a green substance, probably the oxide of copper, though no ornament of copper was discovered. This was the only burial in the mound. (pp. 361-362)

Sadly, there is not enough information to draw firm conclusions. The Victorians, for example, were not aware of modern paleopathology, which has studied how bones change in various environments. The Smithsonian researchers noted that the mounds in question, being on a low-lying island in a river, were heavily saturated with water. Standard texts on paleopathology state that the repeated freezing and thawing of the water “will produce expansion by ice crystal formation.” This can make the bones appear larger, until such time as the ice crystal formation process results in the bones shattering. The Smithsonian report that the bones were “very soft” implies that they were in the thawing phase (obviously, they were not frozen during the warm-weather excavation) and had already lost a great deal of their integrity due to the gradual expansion of the bone structure due to such ice crystal action. 

Such a process may well explain the frequent reports that “giant” bones disintegrated as soon as excavators tried to touch them; their integrity had been compromised and the bones shattered. Indeed, in the same Smithsonian report a similar skeleton of more than seven feet at another site was said to have “crumbled to pieces immediately after removal from the hard earth in which it was encased” (p. 115).

Obviously, of course, this kind of expansion won’t add feet to the size of the bones, but enough to turn a slightly above average body into a “gigantic” one. The report makes plain that the body buried in Mound 12—uniquely buried alone in that mound cluster—was a high status individual, and it’s likely that an abnormally but not super-humanly tall man achieved high status by virtue of his height and size. This is hardly unheard of, and it is probably telling that virtually no scholar discussing these mounds or citing the report found anything worth commenting on in the story of the more than seven foot tall man. Reports of Native Americans between six and seven feet tall occur with frequency from Vasco de Gama down to the colonial era, and there isn’t much reason to be shocked by it. Native Americans were consistently taller than Europeans. The Susquehannocks were also said to be giants. A forensic investigation of their skeletons, however, found that Susquehannocks averaged 5’7” in height, but still several inches taller than the Europeans. Nevertheless, occasional individuals of great height popped up from time to time. De Soto’s men said that the great chief Tuscaloosa was nearly seven feet tall.

Sadly, we can’t go visit the site to find out what was in Mound 12. In the 1940s, the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed the Watts Bar Dam, whose reservoir flooded the Holston River valley and submerged all by the highest ground of the former Long Island. In 1941, emergency excavations were conducted in advanced of the dam project. These excavations determined that some of the 19 mounds were in fact natural hills, and no “giant” skeleton was seen. However, the TVA and the Works Progress Administration pressured the archaeologist in charge to excavate and report faster in order to expedite national defense preparations.

But I guess this must be part of the conspiracy. Funny, though, isn’t it that the Smithsonian would publish an account of the giant in their annual report? Funnier still that this occurred more than a decade after David Childress claims that the conspiracy to hide the truth began in 1881. Micah Hanks wants to see the Smithsonian report as proof of “a deeper level of the mystery that has yet to be explored,” but in fact the inclusion of “giant” skeletons in the report makes plain that such skeletons were not being hidden, and the scholars of the era didn’t think they were particularly unusual or unnatural either.

68 Comments
Tara Jordan
8/1/2013 07:15:13 am

With all due respect Jason,is it absolutely necessary to debunk this junk?.By collaborating with FATE Magazine,Intrepid Magazine,Mysterious Universe ( The three little brats of the paranormal community),Hanks (who unsurprisingly doesn't have any credentials at all) already discredits himself beyond repair.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/1/2013 09:42:53 am

I wrote about it because Hanks discussed me specifically by name.

Reply
red pill junkie link
8/2/2013 02:22:57 am

And the 1st comment of your post shows you've never bothered to hear what Micah has to say, or his stance on "things that lack conventional evidence."

<i>'UFOs are going to cause the Singularity?'</i> That's the 1st time I read that, and I've listened to Micah discussing his books on several occasions --I haven't read it yet though, I admit-- Micah's point is that perhaps UFOs are evidence of a non-human intelligence that has gone beyond a post-biological existence --but I guess only people with 'the right credentials' like physicist <a href="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/07/if-we-ever-encounter-extraterrestrial-intelligence-it-is-overwhelmingly-likely-to-be-post-biological.html">Paul Davies</a> gets permission to state such radical nonsense.

But back to what caused you to reply, wasn't Micah's reservations & skeptic approach about these account of giant bones not enough for you? He only pointed out to those 2 references to make the case that MAYBE we shouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand, even though he doesn't fully buy the notion of the Smithsonian conspiracy.

Saludos,

RPJ
(Minion of the 3 Paranormal Brats*)

(*)Actually, make that only 2

Jason Colavito link
8/2/2013 02:42:53 am

I've never read Micah Hanks' books. My statement was based on the description his publisher provided of his book, "The UFO Singularity," which promised to explore how UFOs related to the singularity.

Are you suggesting that my writing that Hanks provided interesting information worthy of exploration is somehow wrong? I thought it was important to point out that Hanks' evidence actually supported my view rather than the conspiracy theorists', and I had additional information to add about it.

Is your problem that I thought it was worth exploring the issue further or that I don't accept superficial 50-50 "balance" as the same as getting down to the truth?

Jason Colavito link
8/2/2013 02:50:12 am

It's my fault for assuming Hanks was using the word "singularity" the way every other science writer uses it. Of course he has some completely different definition of it since alternative writers love to coin their own terms. Apparently his publisher didn't quite know either, since the description doesn't make it clear. I will amend the above post to note that he believes the "UFO singularity" refers to a time when human technology catches up to imaginary alien technology.

Christopher Randolph
8/2/2013 06:06:22 am

Aside from 'singularity' the sentences don't make much sense because of the use of 'UFO.' Isn't a UFO simply any sky observation the viewer can't identify? "UFOs" are and always will be 'real,' and are more accurately described as a failure of human intelligence. Once you understand a UFO it isn't one any longer.

If people mean 'flying saucers' or 'alien craft' they should probably say that, and I think there's an avoidance of those more accurate and embarrassing terms in the tinfoil brigade.

Incidentally I tend to think there's plenty of life elsewhere in the universe, I just don't think it's making interstellar trips to pile rocks on rocks and leave. (This is come to think of it another trope of the alternative types - whether you're the Templars or John Dee or Gort it seems to be very important to make an incredible journey to pile up some rocks and scram!)

Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 04:44:09 am

Red Pill Junkie.At least Jason is not censuring anyone on his blog.
You & I exchanged words on few occasions on Mysterious Universe, before your "partners in crime" decided to prevent me for posting. Mysterious Universe,a paragon of intellectual integrity.....

Reply
red pill junkie link
8/2/2013 04:55:35 am

You'll have to forgive me, but I don't recall the exchange --I engage on multiple online discussions on a daily basis. Having said that, I don't have any saying on Mysterious Universe's commenting policy, I just blog for them.

I can only assure you that, whatever reasons (or lack there of) Ben & Aaron had from censoring you, it was not because I ask them to or something like that.

Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 05:02:48 am

Red Pill Junkie.I am not blaming you,I am aware you are not running the game.As far as I remember,we had a civil exchange.You are ok in my book,but Ben & Aaron are running a "business",they dont appreciate people like me.

The Other J.
8/1/2013 09:16:51 am

Don't skeletons also appear longer after the joints have been dis-articulated? And if so, how long have paleopathologists been taking into account that "spreading" when considering how tall a buried body might have been when alive? Add the freezing/thaw effect to the dis-articulation, and a body gets exaggerated.

I just recall seeing the body of a buried Viking warrior in a museum once, and it was around 7 feet tall/long (in armor). But when alive, he would have been something like somewhere between 6'3 - 6'6; still tall, but not a giant (certainly not by Scandinavian standards).

Reply
Te Other J.
8/1/2013 09:19:20 am

(Should make it clear the docent noted that the Viking appeared longer once it was just bones and armor than he would have been alive.)

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/1/2013 09:41:57 am

That's a great point. I was giving the Smithsonian scholars the benefit of the doubt about the dis-articulation, but without photographs or detailed drawings, there isn't any way to know at this far remove.

Reply
Mordecai Rodnipoff link
8/1/2013 10:45:25 am

Hi Jason,

I thought Micah Hanks essay was quite fair and balanced. As it is, there are ten, maybe twelve or so references in the Smithsonian's own ethnology reports 1880's - 1890's which mention very large skeletons seven to eight feet in length, and in the same type of mounds, and region where most of the 19th -20th press clippings mention giant finds-- coincidence? I think not. Many of these news reports say emphatically that the bones, if they did not crumble, were sent to the Smithsonian in D.C. or a national museum like the Carnegie etc. And in a number of news reports, up to the 1920's, the actual bone measurements are sometimes listed. Take for example, "The Evening Independent, Feb 14, 1925 pg 1" which says the Smithsonian led an "unsuccessful" expedition to the shell mounds of western Florida "in search of proof of the giant race theory." Gee... so the Smithsonian had a theory, according to this news story, that a giant race may have existed in Florida?... The article goes on to mention that the Smithsonian was, however, successful in retrieving at least one skeleton of a man "not less than seven feet" high... "the length of a thigh bone was 63 centimetres"... Gee that's a big femur!... about 25 inches! I'd say the expedition was successful in finding a giants... I mean, you don't just randomly plow through a few hundred graves in modern America and find 7 1/2 foot people. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=V-pPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vlQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3083,2080989&dq=giant+race+theory&hl=en

Considering 18 -19 inches is about average femur length for most men, a 25 inch femur is fully a third longer than normal. If this individual had proportions similar to even the pathological giants such as Charles Byrne who stood about 7 feet 8 inches tall in life, and had a 62.5 cm long right femur, and 64.2 cm left femur, (ref: The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 29, 1892 pg 568) This giant Floridian native may have been as tall as 7 feet 8 inches or so. But even if we use a standard formula or regression model, (which are designed to be work most accurately for people of normal stature!) such as ForDisc 2.0., we get about 6 feet 10 inches as the minimum likely stature for this individual, if we use the male femoral equation for Mongolian ancestry: Femur Mongoloid 2.15 * femur (63) + 72.57 ± 3.80 cm = 208.02. or 6 ft 9.9 inches. So if this strapping Indian was between 6'10 and 7'8, ... the mean estimate might be something like 7 feet 3 inches.

And If 19th century Victorian era scientists, anatomists and field agents of the Smithsonian were incompetent at measuring bone lengths to within,,, half a foot? and skeletons... yet could survey entire mound structures, acres of land to high precision.. surely mid 20th century archaeologists could get it right?

As it happens, all the major early Adena scholars in fact do mention finding skeletons of men over seven feet tall among the elite burials:

The Dover Mound. William Snyder Webb, Charles Ernest Snow. University of Kentucky Press, 1959 - 72 pages.

Mounds for the Dead: An Analysis of the Adena Culture. Don W. Dragoo. Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1963 - 315 pages.

Excavation of Two Adena Mounds in Coshocton County, Ohio.
Wayne A. Mortine, Doug Randles. Muskingum Valley Archaeological Survey, 1981 - 31 pages.

Mound builders of ancient America: The Archaeology of a myth. Robert Silverberg. New York Graphic Society, 1968 - 369 pages.

The Dover Mound (Webb & Snow):

Page 31

Burial # 40 - Male. Young adult 25 -30 yrs. Very thick, black -stained skull. Five dental pearls on upper and lower second molars. Two femoral shafts bowed "green." Blackened, stained, smoked parietals and right sphenoid bones. Measured length apporxi-mately 84 inches. Tallest Adena man.

Mounds for the Dead pg 72 (Dragoo):

... The large male found in subfloor tomb F.28 was exceptional in height. Measurements taken of the skeleton while still in grave indicated an individual approximately 7.2 feet tall. He would have been a splendid figure in any society and the darling of a primitive basketball team. In all respects the Cresap Mound skeletal material conforms to the physical type of the Kentucky and Ohio Adena mounds as previously described by Snow (1957, p. 47-60) .

Interesting... skeletons with very tall people found in mounds from the same culture in different states... Gee maybe there were tribes with 7 to 8 feet tall Indians after all.

Tuscaloosa is a good example of the type of warrior elite one would choose as a ruler. The Spaniards claimed he was half a yard taller than his men, and his son was just as tall. seven - seven feet six inch tall Natives, among the 5 ft 4 spaniards... That must have been a scary sight! http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/images/photos/001/105/683/yao-ming-injured_crop_340x234.jpg?1294407239

I think it's pretty evident clans or tribes with giant men among their rulers is a clear cut case. I mean, why else would the Philis

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Mordecai Rodnipoff link
8/1/2013 10:58:25 am

Philistines choose a Goliath (and his four brothers) to represent them in combat, or the Israelites similarly choosing a tall man - King Saul to lead them in battle.

I think the best scholar on the giants and mound builders of N. America is Ross Hamilton, and I highly recommend reading his book "A Tradition of Giants." I suggest you also take a closer look at Jim Vieira's facebook page, he has hundreds of finds of large skeletons posted on his page.

Adrienne Mayor also has a great paper on historical giants of this type, the seven to nine feet tall ones. "Giants in Ancient Warfare", Adrienne Mayor, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History (1999) vol 2, no. 2: 98-105: http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/04/giants-in-ancient-warfare-adrienne.html

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Adrienne Mayor
8/3/2013 01:45:45 pm

Mayor's paper on "Giants in Ancient Warfare" does not claim that there were actually giants 7-9 feet tall, instead it collects ancient reports of "giants" from the bible and other sources and argues that in antiquity there were relatively short ethnic groups (eg Greeks and Romans) who encountered relatively taller ethnic groups (eg Celts-Gauls, Germans) who seemed like "giants" to the shorter folk.

Jason Colavito link
8/1/2013 11:04:37 am

I'm not sure I see the problem. Since the Smithsonian reported such skeletons, they were obviously not in a conspiracy to hide them. No one accuses the Victorians of being incompetent at measuring; however, they almost certainly weren't familiar with the various factors that can cause bones to change size or shape during the decomposition process. Again, though, individuals of large but not supernatural height are not particularly shocking, as I mentioned above. The question is whether the museum purposely destroyed evidence, and they almost certainly did not. Many alternative researchers have no idea how many human remains were sent to the Smithsonian. One single collection (out of many) had 3,800 skeletons in 1927, of which only 2,000 of the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeleton Collection were still there when the collection was reevaluated after 1967. And those were normal skeletons with clear documentation and a chain of custody. Don't attribute to conspiracy what is better explained by inefficiency and incompetence.

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Mordecai Rodnipoff
8/1/2013 11:39:30 am

Oh, I agree definitely, inefficiency and incompetence of chain of custody and poor record keeping is definitely at play here... That still doesn't take away the question, where are the skeletons the Smithsonian unearthed which did not crumble? But as Ross Hamilton and Jim Vieira and I have noted, there may also have been other factors behind the suppression of these finds of tall elites, and warriors, and that it may have been politically advantageous to portray the native Americans as short, brute, savages unsophisticated so that the American pioneers were justified in grabbing their land and plundering their tombs and plowing through the burial mounds. Finding skeletons of powerful kings and queens, seven feet or more tall with rich sophisticated, intricate culture of trade, copper-smiths, workers of obsidian and stone and an ability to build edifices with astronomical precision and high mathematics may have been a threat to the savage mythos... of those days... the finding of physically taller or superior ancient peoples may have had many connotations. While articulated skeletons may shift an inch, or few inches from original position, entire limb bones growing say... from 18 inches to 25 inches... hmmm... Sorry I don't buy that. The sponge factor I really don't buy. Advocating that the bones adn skulls can grow and expand a quarter to half again their normal size post mortem?... is more spectacular to me than putting a marshmallow peep in the microwave.

Just my fifty cents.

Jason Colavito link
8/1/2013 11:51:43 am

I don't suppose you read what I wrote above, where I said that the expansion due to ice crystal formation would not double or triple the size of a bone, but by adding fractionally to every bone could contribute to an overall distortion of the whole skeleton's size. For example, just an eighth or a quarter inch added to each bone would add up to a few extra inches of height across the whole skeleton. Skeletons, after all, are made up of many bones. As I said before, there is nothing unusual about tall people; if these giants were a "race" we should find whole communities of giant burials, not isolated individuals.

You've also offered a wide array of claims that don't have archaeological support. What evidence do you have of copper smiths? Copper artifacts in pre-Columbian America were cold-hammered.

You seem unconcerned about the thousands upon thousands of "missing" skeletons and want to know only about a handful. The fact is that as the centuries pass, whole warehouses of stuff vanish for a variety of reasons, very few of which are conspiracies. The Smithsonian claims to have 137 MILLION artifacts, of which 126 million are natural history artifacts (including bones). Given the ravages of time, it is hardly surprising that whole boxes of stuff dumped in the nineteenth century, before modern cataloging and during period for which records have rotted or were destroyed, can't now be found. If it were a conspiracy, we wouldn't find so many "normal" bones missing, too.

Mordecai Rodnipoff link
8/1/2013 12:33:45 pm

Hi Jason,

I concur with you than an inch or couple, maybe a few inches of fluctuation could distort a skeleton of so vast a size when we take into account the vertebral columns & etc... so maybe the 7 feet 2 giant is 6 -11, or 7'1, or a 7 ft 6 skeleton is a meager 7'4 or 7'2 in life. But of course, if we add flesh and cartilage to these reduced figures, say an inch' a third inch for scalp, quarter inch for soles of feet, some cartilage in the spine, neck etc the result may also come out close to the same height even with your crystal theory taken into account.

Based on the digs from Don Dragoo of the Carnegie museum at Cresap Mound, West Virginia in 1958, an Adena site possibly going back 1,000 or 1,100 years B.C., he writes that "In all respects the Cresap Mound skeletal material conforms to the physical type of the Kentucky and Ohio Adena mounds as previously described by Snow." Both Dragoo and Webb and Snow report seven to 7.2 feet tall men in the Cresap and Dover mounds, and in the case of Dover mound, Webb and Snow report skeletons of men well above and even women exceeding 6 feet. So, I think we are dealing with the same racial physical characteristics of the same time period, in two different states... the Adena elite burials that is. Considering Cresap mound had about 54 burials, and Dover roughly 100 burials... It's actually VERY statistically significant to find one 7 foot man in a sample of say fifty, or a hundred corpses. I mean, look at our NBA, we have only 8 men out of 250 players who are 7 feet or more, tallest Roy Hibbert is 7' 2 (and arguably with shoes factored in)... I think anyone seven feet or better is incredibly unusual. All the more relevant than when you have hundreds of reports of very large skeletons in the mounds from news papers, science magazines, excavation reports, and county histories. It may have been that the genetic incidents of being seven feet or more was much higher among certain family groups of the royal classes of ancient American Indians. Look at Thomas Jefferson's, & Lewis and Clark's report of the Osage warriors.... often 6 ft 6 to even 7 feet tall they wrote, and this was about the year 1800 -1810.

Coppersmiths*... Well, beaten copper you are right. Although many of the press clippings reported very hardened copper instruments and weapons found in the mounds, almost as hard as iron. I think they had this technique down to a fine form.

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Mordecai Rodnipoff III
8/1/2013 12:46:06 pm

According to the Spokane Chronicle - Aug 21, 1989 pg 6, The National Congress of American Indians estimated that the bones of 2.5 million Indians were held in public and private collections across the US, although other estimates were 250,000.

The Smithsonian had an estimated 35,000 Indian skeletons in 1989 before NAGPRA was passed. So yeah, with that many skeletons... I am very curious about the giant skeletal finds and what exactly the Smithsonian as well as other private and national collections may still have post NAGPRA.

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Tara Jordan
8/1/2013 05:03:02 pm

Mordecai.
There is nothing mysterious about having quotas of exceptionally tall men among a population. Unusually big skeletal remains have also been found amongst Hominoidea, Homininae,Hominini & Genus Homo families.

Tara Jordan
8/1/2013 06:12:46 pm

There is an underlying "racial" (racist) or ethnocentric element at the core of most of these "alternative" theories.

Extra terrestrials provided the technical support & the technological expertise to build the Great Pyramid because Egyptians are considered to stupid to have done the job on their own.
Same scheme for the megalithic structures built by indigenous cultures in South America,the Indus Valley,Mesopotamia,east of the Litani River & even as far as Nan Madol-Micronesia & Rapa Nui-Easter Island.

These "alternative historians" will not question the Greco Roman ability to do what they did.No magical intervention from an "advanced civilization" to build the Flavian Amphitheatre, The Acropolis etc....Because we all know that Greeks & Romans were exceptionally smart (if not superiorly smart).It`s a white men`s world

If "Western" type Giants were already roaming the lands of North America at a time when they were not supposed to,it denies the "indigenousality" of the indigenous populations.It eradicates the social fabric of indigenous societies,their cultural-historical origins,their identity & the very notion of sovereignty. This approach also "almost" justifies the brutal colonization,the stealing of lands & natural resources,the ethnic cleansing,the genocides that took place later on.It`s a white men`s world.

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Bill
8/2/2013 12:48:56 am

I think there is another reason Greece and Rome are for the most part avoided by alternative historians. There target audience is very familiar with these cultures. That makes it easier for the audience to call BS when the topic alien involvement in the Parthenon is broached. If the culture is unfamiliar to the audience its easier to pass off the alternative theory as plausible. I'm always surprised by the number of believers I talk to that are unaware of how thoroughly the Egyptian and Some of the Middle Eastern cultures documented various aspect of their civilizations.

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 04:46:20 am

Excellent point.

Christopher Randolph
8/2/2013 05:56:46 am

Tara -

I agree completely with this post and as I keep saying it's the reason I pay attention to these people at all - the underlying ugly assumptions that fuel the garbage.

I very much link the refusal of 9/11 'Truthers' to the same attitude; it's all about what nonwhites "can't" do.

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 06:41:55 am

Christopher.

Absolutely,this mental process also works the other way.It is very difficult to discuss the issue of Trans-African slavery,the Arab slave trade,because non Whites are not supposed to be capable of reaching the level of wickedness and moral leprosy that affects Whites.Political correctness is a bitch.

Scotty Roberts link
8/2/2013 02:55:26 pm

The "racial" or "ethnocentric argument used by Skeptics is a red herring. It simply does not exist and has been refuted in practice many times over.

Its an argument Skeptics cling to, in much the same way conspiratorialists cling to their notions.

"Oh, the poor, ignorant. little brown peoples..." such an erroneous charge. But it gives the die-hard Skeptic fodder.

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 04:23:34 pm

Of course there is nothing remotely political & ethnocentric behind the alternative theories of the school of "new Egyptologists"of mid 1970`s.RA Schwaller de Lubicz was not a major influence for John Antony West,Graham Hancock,Robert Beauval & many others.I could go on & on for pages,detailing the connections & philosophical "proximities" between particular branches of esoterism, Occultism,organizations & lodges (such as The Great White Brotherhood,Theosophical society,The Nine,etc....) specific New Age belief systems,with white supremacism,"Aryan & right wing ideologies .Today,the same charlatans have no problem pushing up Afrocentric lunacies like "Black genesis the prehistoric history of ancient Egypt",because mentalities have "evolved" & there is a "new market" for mysteries.Alternative historians are now milking a different crowd. A shift in consciousness....

You probably don't even read the junks you promote but I do.Your website is a repository for some of the most insipid garbage available on the market. You should consider adding "Black Athena" by Martin Bernal to your catalog,it might provide a semi academic flavor to your New Age concoction.

By the way,good job on Zecharia Sitchin". The man has been debunked times & times again & there is nothing left of his "groundbreaking researches", but you are still promoting his crappy fabrications. I guess publicity,even bad publicity is always good for business, you are a crafty businessman.

red pill junkie link
8/2/2013 02:58:42 am

"Hanks agreed with most of the points I made before deciding that even though I made logical claims they must nonetheless be wrong because giants are real"

This is what I have a problem with, Jason. The tone you used implies that Micah is so desperate to cling to the idea that giants walked the Earth, he's looking for evidence to support his beliefs.

And that's not the case.

But I suppose Micah is not skeptic enough for you, because the sign of a true skeptic is to debunk all this silly nonsense, right?

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Jason Colavito link
8/2/2013 03:40:55 am

In reading his article, Hanks seemed to me to be suggesting that because giants are real there may be something to the conspiracy claims. If you want me to be more blunt, I can be: Hanks prefers to ask questions with no answers, present information without conclusions, and leave the impression that he has said something when he has not. Much as Erich von Daniken made a great show of never asserting anything ("I'm just asking questions!"), but if he doesn't want the audience to draw certain conclusions, why ask the question?

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red pill junkie link
8/2/2013 04:22:11 am

Well, allow me to be blunt as well: the fact that you decided to edit the 1st paragraph of your post once I took you to task, without leaving the original text crossed, tells me a lot about your approach to skepticism --the kind that can't stand not to be right.

Bill
8/2/2013 08:27:50 am

So you complained about how Jason phrased something. He acknowledged your complaint and told you how he was going to change the phrasing. Now that he has changed the phrasing he's unethical because he didn't use the same format to change the phrasing you would have used? If it was a case of the skeptic always has to be right he would have let the phrasing stand in its original form.

Micah Hanks link
8/2/2013 06:05:10 pm

Jason,

Micah here… I've withheld my own comments from this thread up until now, with interest in seeing where the discussion might lead. Needless to say, it's been entertaining, although I was pretty disgusted when some folks began making assertions about racism, extraterrestrials, and yes, the allegations of conspiracy… none of which, in my opinion, have much to do with the mere discussion of large skeletons uncovered by the Smithsonian agents toward the end of the nineteenth century.

However, in truth, looking back at what I had written, I now can actually see how you, and maybe others too, could have simply misunderstood what I was saying. Therefore, below I include a relevant portion from my original article, with further statements intended to clarify that will follow. Let's review:

"Stories like that of Sanderson and the Sunset Cave discovery of 1911 suggest the discovery, as well as the potential mishandling, of otherwise precious bits of information about ancient America. And yet, none of these “stories,” whether told by independent researchers, or agents like Dr. Cyrus Thomas, really provide us with a complete specimen: if one good, complete giant skeleton were known to exist in its entirety, which scientists today could openly study and discuss with the public, there would be little need for discussion of a conspiracy."

Allow me to clarify precisely what I mean here, and thus present it on your site, rather than going back and amending my original article to make that point, as you apparently had done earlier today. I feel that the reason there is no "specimen" that can be examined is because there probably are no recovered skeletons of larger than average proportion, either in the possession of the Smithsonian, or for that matter, being covered up or hidden away. Further proof that no "cover up" had been intended is afforded us by the fact that these discoveries were included in the Bureau of Ethnology reports by Cyrus Thomas himself; this highlights another point we've each made in our respective articles, though I see you appeared to take sole credit for noticing this in what you wrote above. Maybe my influence was merely subliminal in this case… either way, I'm flattered! ;)

But kidding aside, while I would otherwise consider that maybe I hadn't been clear in making this point, I notice that others seemed to get precisely what I was expressing, as evidenced by this summary that appeared today at Anomalist.com:

"Micah Hanks finds proof that 19th century archaeologists did indeed unearth bones of possible giant humans with height measurements of 7 to 8 feet. However, the bones were reported to be in bad condition and crumbling so that is likely the reason why there are no bones in existence today. In the century since that time, the bones crumbled to dust, the records were buried deep under decades of other writings, and the legend of the giants grew to epic proportion, Hanks explains, and thus a modern day myth was born."

Indeed, a myth was born… and not a conspiracy. And while I'm certain many would like to attack Anomalist.com for featuring "fringe" material, I should point out that they also frequently link to my articles by my friend Sharon Hill of Doubtful News. Sharon and I compare notes from time to time, and I've interviewed her in the past. I respect her tremendously, enjoy her writing, and thus feel that she, too, would qualify for being a skeptic that is not "self righteous," just as I attempt to be. She is fairly open-minded too, when the circumstances can justify it… thus rounding her out as an excellent researcher in my opinion. For many, perhaps she simply "isn't skeptical enough." Contrary to this, I would say that a few others I can think of (I won't name any names here) could learn from studying some of Sharon's approaches to skepticism (see her "Media Guide to Skepticism" for more on this).

Altogether, I must say that I attempted to fairly represent the quotes from you featured in my article, and not to allow them to be excerpted in such a way that detracted from your views, or misconstrued your feelings. Here, both in your rebuttal above, as well as your comments that follow, I do not feel you have afforded me the same luxury: my feelings on the matter of giant skeleton "conspiracies" have not been accurately represented, and instead, a number of assertions were made that are perhaps rooted more in what you "wanted to see," rather than what I intended to express. This is further evidenced by the wording you used in the comment directly above, where you said, "Hanks seemed to me to be suggesting that because giants are real there may be something to the conspiracy claims." Maybe that's a disclaimer, and in stating such, you felt justified in launching attacks... which is not a problem, in my book. I am not angry with you, because I feel you simply misunderstood me. However, I hope I have now cleared up for you what "

Micah Hanks link
8/2/2013 06:08:07 pm

Continuing my comment above (which was apparently truncated when I went to post it): This is further evidenced by the wording you used in the comment directly above, where you said, "Hanks seemed to me to be suggesting that because giants are real there may be something to the conspiracy claims." I hope I have now cleared up for you what "Hanks seemed to me" to be expressing, as well as for everyone here.

And as a final note, I want you to know I have enjoyed many of your posts here at the site in the past, and plan on continuing to enjoy things you write, along with opinions that you express. You are a good researcher, a great writer, and a bright thinker. However, I also feel that on the World Wide Web, a number of unnecessarily polarized viewpoints can tend to emerge, especially when people perceive that they may be under attack. In quoting you, I intended neither to attack, nor discredit you. In contrast to that, I have seen a number of phrasings and implications directed at me that I feel were unfounded, as expressed in the article above this comment thread, and which obviously had been aimed at making me seem like a less than credible researcher (such as the initial misinterpretation of my views regarding any potential connection between UFOs and technological Singularity, which as a few have noted already, I that see you went back and amended later). I harbor no ill feelings toward you for any of that Jason, and instead, I only seek to restate my feelings here with greater clarity than before, so that my true opinions on the matter will not be further misconstrued by you, or anyone, based on pure supposition of "what I think he was saying."

With that, all the best to you, and keep up the good work. It is my hope that perhaps we will be able to continue to share ideas and theories in the future, and in a public forum like this, as colleagues.

With warm regards,

Micah Hanks

Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 07:59:23 pm

Micah Hanks

"although I was pretty disgusted when some folks began making assertions about racism, extraterrestrials, and yes, the allegations of conspiracy....".

I never mentioned your name or implied you had anything to do this issue,I spoke about the larger context of alternative history,diffusionism & anthro-archeological revisionism.

Jason Colavito link
8/3/2013 01:57:57 pm

Micah, I've made a new post to reply to your comments since they deserve a fuller discussion than this forum (with its [I think] 500 word limit) can provide.

Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 04:57:32 am

Red Pill Junkie.I am not gullible enough to post on Mysterious Universe?,since the little dork who monitors the threads prevented from posting after my intervention on the Ancient Aliens bullshit topic.(Michael Heiser also reacted on the same topic on the same day).Don't even think about coming around here & lecturing us about ethical standards

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 05:21:33 am

Red Pill Junkie.Forgive me I don't have a beef with you but with the individuals who runs Mysterious Universe.They prevented me from posting although I never used foul language,I was probably arrogant (as usual) but never disrespectfu. But I understand why they did it,its about business,as long as people remains uneducated, there is a huge market for "mysteries".

Steve St Clair
8/2/2013 06:44:21 am

That's right, Red Pill Junkie. What Tara is trying to say is - if you're not going to join the mob in kicking the guy they hate this week, then you should just leave. Clearly you don't understand the 'ethical standards' to which this august group hold themselves.

Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 06:57:38 am

My personal stalker is back (The fake Steve St Clair).I`d respectfully suggest you to pick a new name because you are not fooling anyone (especially me).The real Steve St Clair never engages me.I appreciate the attention but I am not looking for a penpal,but considered me flattered.

red pill junkie link
8/2/2013 05:38:52 am

@ Tara: Is this the MU conversation you're referring to?

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/11/science-skepticism-and-the-ancient-astronaut-debate/

I didn't know you were prevented from posting --too bad because I really think we were having a nice debate there!-- but (and this is a subjective opinion on my part, NOT infused by my personal connection to MU) I don't believe the blocking was based on them trying 'to protect their business.'

Yes, Aaron & Ben know the entertainment value of many of the stories they discuss on their show, but if they were really solely interested in making a profit, they would probably be much more friendly toward the 'New Age crowd' they are so fond of making fun of. That way, they could link to all the baubles they make & increase their audience.

I do think MU makes a distinction between paranormal stories that are entertaining but highly questionable, and the stuff where there could be some underlying truth that needs to be explored further. When we were at the Paradigm Symposium, after Giorgio Tsoukalos et al finished their expositions, the guys & I would compare notes and the things where we didn't agree with the AAt.

Is it wrong for them to give a platform to these topics? Maybe, but I think it's not worse that thinking the public is not smart enough to draw their own conclusions.

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 06:32:27 am

Indeed,I am "Unsocial Darwinist".
Of course they have the right to provide a platform for these topics (I am in favor for absolute freedom of expression) but I think it is unfortunate that we skeptics (the independent skeptics) are often prevented from telling the other side of the story.I am equally critical of the Skeptics community & "certified" skeptics who more than often behave like cultists.
When it comes to Jason,you may hate him or like him but he has a unique policy,he doesn't prevent anyone from interacting on his blog.
"but I think it's not worse that thinking the public is not smart enough to draw their own conclusions". You are an optimist and have faith in human nature,I don't ;)

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Mike Heiser link
8/2/2013 06:41:14 am

Those published conspiracies are the most closely guarded ones . . . and no one would ever suspect that a human could reach seven feet tall . . . and one such specimen clearly points to a whole race.

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Only Me
8/2/2013 07:57:38 am

I find it telling that the "conspiracy" has so much support that flies in the face of established precedent. I've read articles that demonstrated how excited anthropologists were when skeletal remains of H. heidelbergensis were found, allegedly of a population where the evidence showed the individuals reached a height of seven feet. H.erectus has left behind skeletal evidence of individuals that were well above the average mean, or had the potential to do so (Turkana Boy). The excitement was due to the diverse morphology within these groups, proving that this characteristic is not unique only to modern humans. If anything, it reinforced the belief that these ancestral groups deserved to be recognized for who they were...humans.

The idea that giant remains in America must have been the victims of a cover-up to protect ethnic driven European views, is rather ridiculous, given how so many fell for the most famous hoax, the Cardiff Giant.

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Mordecai Rodnipoff
8/2/2013 11:08:53 am

Mike Heiser, Only Me, Tara Jordan, Jason Colavito et al,

Well, good then. So we can at least agree that some genuine seven to eight feet tall skeletons have been measured and documented in some of the American mounds based on excavation reports from 1880's to 1980's.

As for Heidelbergensis having representatives over 7 feet tall, I still have yet to see any admission of these sizes in Nature Magazine, Nat Geo, or any other science mag, or even any news report about these giant fossil men except one pod cast. Certainly if racial groups of giants routinely standing about 7 to perhaps 7 1/2 feet tall existed in Africa in the Pleistocene, contemporary with other mega-fauna animals that is a rather remarkable fact worthy of press coverage! I'd argue equally as spectacular as the discovery of the inverse, or the 3 to 4 foot hobbit people.

Lee R Berger makes it quite clear he believes giant humans roamed Africa... and he said they found a lot of them, they were not abnormalities. Listen to a podcast from 2007. http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/833/

My question then is, if Dr Berger, basing his conclusions off incomplete skeletons, fossils, limb bone fragments, etc can paint a picture of an ancient giant race in that region, I would argue that if properly investigated, perhaps the same phenomenon occurred in North America to some degree? The mound skeletons among some of the Adena, and Hopewell cultures would show evidence of an elite warrior class of Native Americans of "Heidelbergensis" stature, many of whom reached in excess of 7 feet tall, and sometimes considerably taller. To the contrary, seven feet is an unusual and a very rare height in modern America, one of the tallest nations of the earth today. It would be hard to put a number on the occurrence of 7 foot men in a given population, but I would argue it could be as rare as 1 in 100,000 to 1 in a half a million. Finding, for instance, in the Cresap or Dover Adena mounds from 1000 BC, a 7'0 or 7 ft 2 inch skeleton out of fifty or sixty skeleton sample, - many of whom are also men approaching 7, and women exceeding 6 feet (i.e. Dover Mound, Webb & Snow 1957), I find beyond statistically significant, substantive to the idea that tribes or a tribal aristocracy of an often giant stature did indeed occupy parts of the Ohio valley and Southeastern United States.

Rather than relegate all the historic reports as worthless, I believe taking them seriously with an open yet critical eye, and attempting to investigate the reports further, and trying to track down the remains to museum records and inventories is a worthy pursuit. The reason for the frustration, and conclusions of a Smithsonian conspiracy, or suppression of these finds are generally because so many of the reports state that the remains went to that institution for a national study, yet the Smithsonian claims no record of such bones. And with NAGPRA and various laws enacted, it becomes ever more a challenge to try and trace such remains.

Again, human origins is a spicy subject. Look at Kennewick man, look at Spirit cave man, look at the reports of red headed mummies from Nevada, or Peru, or Florida. The solutrean hypothesis.

Jason Colavito link
8/2/2013 11:22:44 am

The existence of a few individuals in burial mounds is not indicative of a "race" of giants. Mound burials are, by definition, not representative. The only thing you can conclude from a few large skeletons in mounds is that the people of the time afforded special status to abnormally tall people. Humans varied in size then as now, and you cannot conclude anything about the ethnicity of such individuals relative to the rest of the population. If they were a separate "race," where are all the giant women giving birth to giant men? Or do you propose this is a Y-linked trait requiring no female input?

Have you ever worked in a museum? I have. You have no idea how much stuff got sent to every museum in the 1800s. So much that even today, whole collections still sit in the original boxes, uncatalogued. I've seen it myself--warehouses jammed with crate upon crate of stuff. The Smithsonian said that it had 35,000 skeletons in the 1980s, and that was only what they knew of then; in the early 1900s they almost certainly had many more. But if even 1% went missing through clerical errors, breakage, theft, misdirected shipments, etc., that's 350 skeletons by the lowest count, more than enough to account for all the anomalous skeletons you're looking for just by chance (albeit a small chance). And given that no one at the time (the 1800s) cared much about these giant skeletons, and that transportation was extremely unreliable, that any one given skeleton vanished is just not that surprising. All it takes is one misdirected crate, one box that fell into a river, one requisition form with the wrong signature. That's the reality of bureaucracy.

The Other J.
8/2/2013 07:47:42 pm

Regarding Lee Berger and the Goliaths, maybe check what John Hawks has to say about it (he's the chair of Anthropology at U. of Wisconsin, whose focus is on ancient humans). Berger's giant H. heidelbergensis was first popularized in the National Geographic show "Searching for the Ultimate Suvivor," and comes from one femur fragment. The reconstruction -- at least the one that was represented as a giant in the show -- was based on other cranial and postcranial fragments from the Kabwe skull. Of the reported fragments that could have been used for the reconstruction, Hawks notes that two of them are quite large, but not from the same individual.

First, Hawks notes that there's a debate in the field whether H. heidelbergensis is even a useful category. Hawks says one side of the debate believes the name "doesn't describe a real ancient reproductive community, so we tend not to use it at all." Short version: Those who "believe that H. heidelbergensis is valid" break down into those who limit H. heidelbergensis to Europe, and those who apply it to all Middle Pleistocene European and African fossils, as well as some "archaic Homo sapiens" specimens.

But among those who believe that H. heidelbergensis is valid, there are essentially two viewpoints. Some would limit its application to European fossils only[...] Others would apply H. heidelbergensis much more broadly to essentially all Middle Plestocene European, African and some Chinese fossils, and some specimens that have been called "archaic Homo sapiens," on the basis of of enlardged brain size compared to earlier humans combined with the lack of most of the distinctive features of Neanderthals. Those who reject the term do so because it's applied too broadly to be useful (Jason, correct me if I'm wrong here). So when we're talking H. heidelbergensis, that category itself is pretty fuzzy.

Hawks goes on: "So the question is, were Middle Pleistocene humans a race of giants?" and notes two distinctly large specimens -- the Kabwe skull and the pelvis from a Sima de los Huesos specimen ("probably the most massive individual in the Middle Pleistocene record"). Remember that the Kabwe skull was used to recreate Berger's Goliath for the Nat Geo show; both of those specimens belonged to individuals somewhere between 80 and 90 kg. That's gigantic compared to other Pleistocene humans, but not by our standards today. In other words, the skull that was used to recreate Berger's Goliath was probably about 200 pounds. Many of you reading this blog are probably bigger than that giant H. heidelbergensis.

But as Hawks says, there were many skeletal remains pulled from the same sites as those two large examples, and they represented a wide range of sizes, and that's a pattern that persists among specimens found outside of Africa -- "this range of variation is not more extensive than in living human populations." In other words, Kabwe and Sima de los Huesos would have been the Andre the Giants and Shaquille O'Neals of their day, but about average today, and calling H. heidelbergensis "Goliath" was a misnomer that's lead to much interpretation (since "goliath" was originally meant to refer to the size of the skull -- again, Jason, correct me if I'm wrong here).

Hawks goes on to explain the different factors that could influence size variety in the Pleistocene. It's worth a read.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/middle/body_mass_2005.html

As far as large people being buried in mounds in North America, as noted before, it shouldn't be surprising that A.) Larger people attained positions of prominence and power, and B.) People of prominence and power tend to get fancier burials, so C.) It shouldn't be surprising to find larger people in fancy burial mounds. But that doesn't necessarily point to a race of giants so much as it points to a race with a range of variety -- after all, if they were all giants, none of them would really stand out and be worthy of that extra prominence and power.

That's probably important to reiterate: If there were a race of giants, the size of a leader wouldn't give him prominence and power among his people, because he'd be of relatively the same size as the other giants. He wouldn't be exceptional. An exceptionally large person among others who display the standard variety heights very well could give him prominence and power -- but that means he's from those people. Unless you're suggesting a race of giants spread out and took leadership of other tribes, which introduces more problems than it solves. Plus, as Hawks also suggests, favorable climate and a healthy food supply can go a long way toward making people taller. Something Douglas Rushkoff pointed out in his book Life, Inc. is how tall women grew in medieval England. Back then, food was grown, stored and eaten locally, and since it couldn't be stored long-term (no refrigeration), food had to be eaten before it went bad. When the economic structure that supported that kind of lifestyle

The Other J.
8/2/2013 07:51:23 pm

*got cut off*

When the economic structure that supported that kind of lifestyle shifted (the beginnings of the empire), more food began being shipped out, and women ceased to get as tall. English women are just now starting to catch up with their well-fed ancestors. It isn't too hard to believe that similarly well-fed and healthy Native Americans might be able to thrive and grow taller

And it's just not uncommon to find very tall Native Americans. My father-in-law is Ojibwe, played college basketball, and is is about 6'6 and very broad (and a total teddy bear completely whipped by his daughters).

Bill
8/2/2013 08:35:09 am

A sample of size of one greatly reduces the standard deviation and, if you chose the right sample, makes it much easier to draw the desired conclusions.

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Only Me
8/2/2013 11:04:31 am

This is true. I was merely pointing out that the unaccounted disappearance of a handful of archaeological finds equating to a longstanding effort to "bury" the truth is silly. As has been said before, isolated finds, or even the discovery of a few abnormal individuals, is not earth shattering. These appear to be anomalies that still fall within normal expectations based on population. A greater number, say 15 or more, might be reason enough for anthropologists to focus their research.

William Best
8/2/2013 12:38:15 pm

I just wanted to point something out -- I did a very cursory search for how many people in the NBA have been 7ft since its inception.

Although I am only citing Wikipedia, the following page shows 20 players of 7ft stature or higher since 1960.

So there have been 20 people documented in the past 50 or so years for a comparatively small population (the NBA) to the rest of the world population.

Because the NBA list only includes such a small portion of the population that has existed over the past 50 years, I would reason that there has probably been more than 20 people on our planet who are 7ft and above since 1960 even if there were only 21.

I would venture to guess that whatever science studies heights does not attribute these "giants" to be a part another "race," but I cannot back that up by evidence that I have right now.

My conclusion is that if there has been at least 20 people documented in the past 50 years, and the skeletons in question were collected from time periods spanning hundreds of years, it is entirely possible that even if hundreds of "giant's" skeletons were recovered it is not proof of a special race of people and especially not a cover up.

Just my 2 cents.

William Best
8/2/2013 12:38:26 pm

I just wanted to point something out -- I did a very cursory search for how many people in the NBA have been 7ft since its inception.

Although I am only citing Wikipedia, the following page shows 20 players of 7ft stature or higher since 1960.

So there have been 20 people documented in the past 50 or so years for a comparatively small population (the NBA) to the rest of the world population.

Because the NBA list only includes such a small portion of the population that has existed over the past 50 years, I would reason that there has probably been more than 20 people on our planet who are 7ft and above since 1960 even if there were only 21.

I would venture to guess that whatever science studies heights does not attribute these "giants" to be a part another "race," but I cannot back that up by evidence that I have right now.

My conclusion is that if there has been at least 20 people documented in the past 50 years, and the skeletons in question were collected from time periods spanning hundreds of years, it is entirely possible that even if hundreds of "giant's" skeletons were recovered it is not proof of a special race of people and especially not a cover up.

Just my 2 cents

Only Me
8/2/2013 03:28:34 pm

Mordecai, I see that I worded my reference regarding H. heidelbergensis wrong; however, it was Dr. Berger himself who said,"These are what we call archaic Homo sapiens. Some people refer to them as Homo heidelbergensis. These individuals are extraordinary, they are giants." This is from the podcast you referenced. My apologies for stating "articles".

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William Best
8/2/2013 11:35:08 am

I just wanted to point something out -- I did a very cursory search for how many people in the NBA have been 7ft since its inception.

Although I am only citing Wikipedia, the following page shows 20 players of 7ft stature or higher since 1960.

So there have been 20 people documented in the past 50 or so years for a comparatively small population (the NBA) to the rest of the world population.

Because the NBA list only includes such a small portion of the population that has existed over the past 50 years, I would reason that there has probably been more than 20 people on our planet who are 7ft and above since 1960 even if there were only 21.

I would venture to guess that whatever science studies heights does not attribute these "giants" to be a part another "race," but I cannot back that up by evidence that I have right now.

My conclusion is that if there has been at least 20 people documented in the past 50 years, and the skeletons in question were collected from time periods spanning hundreds of years, it is entirely possible that even if hundreds of "giant's" skeletons were recovered it is not proof of a special race of people and especially not a cover up.

Just my 2 cents.

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Mordecai Rodnipoff
8/2/2013 05:03:27 pm

Hi William Best,

I see your point. The 7 foot and up skeletons seem to represent a special class of important folk buried in the mounds. These may have been something equivalent to our NBA -- Like the Kanawha County, West Virginia mound which the Smithsonian excavated in the 1880's and found a 7 ft 6 skeleton with copper bracelets, in a bark tomb at the center of the mound, similarly the Cresap mound, and Dover mounds excavated in the fifties contained a 7 ft 2, and 7 feet tall men at the centers of the mound, surrounded by other very tall men and women as noted by Webb and Snow, and Dragoo. The question then becomes what was the incidents of such stature? Most text books state that the Adena, and Hopewell averaged 5 ft 6 to 5 ft 8 for men, which is taller than Europeans at the time. I am also wondering, if like the royal Tutsi, or like the Royal Hawaiian pre-contact family, interbreeding to secure powerful and strong individuals may have been at play? The Osage Indians documented by Jefferson, Lewis, Clark, and Catlin were reported to be "the tallest race of men in North America, either red or white skins; there being few indeed of the men at their full growth, who are less than six feet in stature, and very many of them six and a half, and others seven feet" One of their men, Kots-a-to-ah, or Smoked Shield, painted by George Catlin on the Red River of Texas circa 1830s and described as “another of the extraordinary men of this tribe, near seven feet in stature, and distinguished, not only as one of the greatest warriors, but the swiftest on foot, in the nation. This man, it is said, runs down a buffalo on foot, and slays it with his knife or his lance, as he runs by its side!” Their chief Black Dog was also said to be about 7 feet and 300 lbs. I am thinking that most of these men, the 7 to 8 feet skeletons reported from the Adena mounds, represented healthy genetic stature, as apposed to pituitary gigantism which has an incidents of only 1 or 2 per million. Even in the NBA most of the individuals are perfectly healthy result of genes, and not abnormality. There have been attempts at estimating the number of 7 feet tall men in the U.S. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1187806/

Sports Illustrated claimed "the curve shaped by the CDC's available statistics, however, does allow one to estimate the number of American men between the ages of 20 and 40 who are 7 feet or taller: fewer than 70 in all."

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Tara Jordan
8/2/2013 06:01:01 pm

Mordecai.
From a personal perspective I do not consider the giants race theory to be scientifically "heretical",academically inadmissible or even potentially damaging to the historiography of human origins.Personnally I am open to the idea,why not,but I prefer to rely on what we already know & what we will eventually discover through scientific researches.As opposed to speculations & wishful expectations.If you want to make your case,you`ll only need one argument: statistics.I encourage you to continue your researches.maybe one day you'll subsequently prove us wrong, this is the beauty of the learning process.I am not hostile to what you do,you are reading original documentations,spending time in Museums looking for clues.this is good detective work.Unlike the vast majority of "alternative" advocates who visit this blog, you are not a crackpot.

Only Me
8/2/2013 07:19:14 pm

I agree with Tara. In case you misunderstood me, I haven't been arguing against the existence of giants, only against the charge of a conspiracy to hide evidence of them. There are far more rational explanations as to why skeletal remains are missing, which Jason has covered, that don't require the conspiracy angle.

I left a comment that appeared out of sequence in this thread concerning my mentioning of Dr. Berger's statements about Paleolithic giants in Africa, in case you missed it.

I wish you well on your continued research. I find the matter interesting; I just don't buy into this idea of a cover-up. It's too easy to make the claim, then have the claimant say, "Well, prove me wrong!", when the burden of proof rests with the one making the claim.

mrs. eccentric 'steph' link
8/3/2013 05:06:51 am

hi all! i followed this thread yesterday with interest, but was too busy and had too much to say to comment at that time. First, my credentials: currently a housespouse, i completed all the course work towards an undergraduate degree in Anthro with concentration in archaeology in the early 1980's (sadly no degree - health - tho excellent GPA and evaluations). i mention the institutions in case you'd like to research their reputations: UCSC and UCB.

1) it is disheartening, though not uncommon, to find a self identified 'skeptic' beginning an article with a paragraph consisting strictly of unresearched ad-hominen innuendo. i'm here for the giant skeletons!

2) glad you brought up the freeze/thaw effect on bones, i remembered something along those lines but 30 years on......and yes, fits in quite nicely with the 'shattered upon touch'. I like that it saves the reputations of the archaeologist as well, otherwise it looks like the most ridiculous excuse: 'we found these giant bones, but when we touched them they just shattered, we have no evidence.....' 'yeah go drink another vat of beer, buddy!' vindication is sweet.

3) of course racism belongs in this discussion. Mr. Colavito is aware, as are all students of the history of anthropology, that this discipline started in large part (not all) as a way to find scientific evidence for the superiority of the 'white race', and the Smithsonian in particular sponsored some truly appalling practices. "Dollars for Injun skulls, no questions asked!"

Now, in the last 120 years many anthropologists have made efforts above and beyond to use their discipline as a way to value, respect, and protect all peoples. But it is a fraught area, due to the history. And certain ideas - pre-Columbian contact by non-indians, the presence of 'giants', finding 'advanced technology - have a historical tendency to be associated with racist ideology (regardless of the intrinsic merits of these claims).

To me, it is very strange that this relationship - racist ideas with these particular views on north american prehistory - still exists. But i feel it's quite likely that this relationship, as well as the lack of evidence, contributes to the lack of enthusiasm for these topics among mainstream anthropologists.

4) I enjoyed Micah's article. I thought it was well written and nicely reasoned, and i got very het up about the Bureau of Enthno quotes and the link to the archives. Very telling, actual documentary evidence brought to this (bogus) 'conspiracy' and a rich treasure trove of goodies to mine! Needless to say, as an anthro student the lack of all resources available to the field (money, labor, smarts, etc.) plus the passage of time made the reason behind the disappearance of these skeletons completely obvious.

I like to think Miocah and i are friends, i am a big fan and we've e-mailed back and forth (quite civillly) on just these topics. A few months ago i sent him a rant on these cases, i said what i would looooooove to see is someone running down the accession records on some of these skeletons, imo that was right to the heart of the allegations. Lo and behold what do i see!

i can't help but love that middle of the road, libertarian knucklehead, even tho i'm a bleeding heart socialist meself. :)

free beer for everyone!!! steph

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Varika
8/3/2013 08:41:23 am

I'm piping up to say that I agree that racism is an important part of these discussions, for a particularly important reason:

A lot of these alternative history people, at least the ones who like to believe them without writing them, don't even realize they're being racist.

Yes, it is possible to be "-ist" and not realize it. My father, for instance, truly, honestly thinks he's a wonderfully progressive man, and yet any cleaning that needs to be done anywhere but the garage MUST be done by either my mother or I, even though he and my brother are both perfectly capable of running a vacuum or opening the dishwasher. He does not even realize this is sexist behavior. There are hundreds of examples of everyday sexism just like this, and yet my brother doesn't believe sexism against women exists anymore. (It's all sexism against men, in his book, and yes, we've had screaming fights about that.)

So discussing the racism inherent in some of these claims IS important, because if we don't discuss it, it can be easy to overlook. I'm not sure I would have considered the conspiracy theory discussed here to have even the slightest racial tones, until someone pointed out that the Victorians had political reasons to portray Native Americans as short, stupid brutes. It doesn't make the conspiracy quite as racist as Nazi death camps or anything like that, but it's important to realize that theories like this one contribute to a dehumanization of a minority group. By itself, it's not much, but it's part of a huge overall picture. Or several, since there's the Afrocentric "theory" that is no less racist, but with an African twist, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's at least an Asian-centric version, too.

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Scotty Roberts link
8/3/2013 12:59:35 pm

I believe the Egyptians built the pyramids. That's a pretty "Afro-centric" point-of-view, as far as I am concerned.

To assert that they "needed help" because they were somehow inferior would be analogous to the racist argument, but I know very few who purport the notion of "ancient alien contact" that actually believe the Egyptians did not have the genius nor the ingenuity.

Here is a hypothetical question: what if the Egyptians actually had help from another culture or "race." Would the truth of the matter then be considered "racist?"

Again, I believe the entire "racism hypothesis" by Skeptics to be a canard. Is it an act of "racism" when we recite the history of how the Native American people helped the European settlers' colony survive their first winter on American shores? The Whites were obviously inferior in their knowledge of how to survive, and they were given help.

While I do not hold to the notion that another race aided the Egyptians in their monument building, it would not be an act of racism to say they did, if that in fact was so.

The problem with the racism claim is that it stereotypes all ancient alien theorists as being somehow racist, either directly or by unwitting default.

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Jason Colavito link
8/3/2013 01:55:47 pm

Re: Genius and ingenuity, two ancient astronaut theorists explicitly deny this. Giorgio Tsoukalos argued at length that medieval Arab texts prove that the Egyptians required alien blueprints to figure out how to build pyramids, and the late Philip Coppens asserted repeatedly and falsely that the Famine Stela proved that the Egyptians required "non-human intelligence" to understand the fundamentals of architecture.

The racism question is not the assertion that people who happen to be one color helped people who happened to be another color. The racism comes into play when people of one race assert that people of another race do not deserve to be acknowledged as the authors of their own cultural works, which must be attributed to aliens, Atlanteans, or a master race. To that end, ancient astronaut theorists, as I have written, have made use of Victorian racist ideas but in applying them to white people as well as non-white people have instead universalized their claims of human inferiority.

By contrast, the "lost white race" theorists who want to assert that white people were the true first inhabitants of America are operating in a much more explicitly race-based framework.

Mordecai Rodnipoff link
8/3/2013 03:14:39 pm

Hey Varika,

I agree that race, politics, and religious ideologies are very important to discuss here. After looking at many of these news accounts, historical, diaries, Smithsonian's reports, especially in the latter 19th cen. there was utter disrespect for the Native American remains. In fact a popular theory was that the Indians could not have built many of the mounds, and any tall skeletons occasionally found found must have been evidence of non- Native American race of mound builders, white giants -- although into the early 1900's and 1920's the Smithsonian under Ales Hrdlicka's tenure tended to portray the Native Americans in an even more racist light, and primitive, debunking any notion of giants or very tall Native Americans, Hrdlicka believed no one came to N America any earlier than 4,000 - 5,000 yrs ago, he was incredibly racist and for instance, compared African babies with young apes. Some Mormons believe these tall skeleton reports are evidence of the Nephi, or Jaredites, and some Christians believe they are evidence of Nephilim, while white supremacists might take it as evidence of vikings, or a super Aryan race. But actually, scholars like Ross Hamilton and the late Native American Author Vine Deloria found that these reports of anomalous skeletons of tall stature in fact tended to support some of the tribal traditions of giants among their people, and tribes of large stature they sometimes warred against. Some of their legends speak of stone giants, sasquatch types, others speak of very tall men of robust physique, perhaps the Allegewi or Tallegewi some authors have made reference. In 2002 Vine Deloria met with elders up in Washington state to discuss the traditions of giants and little people. Here is a link to his radio interview 11 years ago discussing the giants: http://www.lauralee.com/index.cgi?pid=3534

Regardless of what agendas, and motives researchers may bring to the table, the most destructive forces historically have been the grave robbers and mound plunderers, university, and national institutions alike, which until the NAGPRA law was passed, gave little dignity to the first great civilizations of N. America. Reading old town histories, I would say the common farmer in Indiana or upstate New York was often just as disrespectful, even if out of necessity he had to clear a mound to till his farm... one account I have describes the landowner pulling out a large skeleton, possibly a chief, and kicking the skull out on the open green as a football. So, Jason, I must concede, I don't find it shocking that so many of these sorts of remains crumbled to dust and were treated like crap, and are now lost forever. As noted scholar Ross Hamilton puts it, these skeletons were not exactly a renewable resource.

With hundreds of 6 1/2 - 7 1/2, 8 feet, even reports of some approx. 9 ft + skeletons mentioned in press accounts, old journals, books, town histories, and archaeology bulletins spanning 200 years, these sizes may not be seen as superhuman to some people today, but I would warrant that a 7 feet 6 inch tall Adena king and his tallest warriors, standing next to the average 5'6" male from that region would arguably be considered supernaturally tall, image I made MS paint for comparison: http://rephaim23.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/giant-adena-2.jpg

Just as the Hebrew stories of giant men in Canaan with six fingers appear as supernatural, we too have rock art, and skeletal evidence from the South West Indians in Arizona and Mexico city, that six fingers, and tall stature was possibly viewed as divine or special status.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.820/abstract

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30246141?uid=3739856&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102524343963

http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/6-digit-hand-and-foot-prints.html

There is a rumored story I am trying to confirm of 7 feet tall skeletons with six digits found in Arizona's 'Canyon de Chelly' back in the 1990's during a washout. According to the story, a young lady, "Lisa Kerr" from New Zealand who was working for the park service claimed that the Smithsonian and FBI showed up crated up the remains, she and the other park employees had to sign non-disclosure forms. I cannot confirm this story, but I did find the six finger/toes to be intriguing, given that polydactyl was documented in that region via cave art and skeletons.

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Varika
8/4/2013 07:48:29 am

My mother is a full twelve inches shorter than my father, so I do know how much difference that is. I also have a cousin who is six-nine, which is a full foot taller than ME, and thus eighteen inches taller than my mother. I find it difficult to think of this as "supernatural" height, but I also admit I don't live in a pre-scientific era. (Part of it for me, though, is that I grew up on fairytales, and "giants" in fairytales were SHORT if they were ten feet tall.) That we have some graves of very tall people, though, is still stretching a bit to support "stone giants" or "Sasquatch."

I didn't understand why people would believe in "dancing maidens turned to stone," "trolls turn to stone in sunlight," or "stone giants" until I saw some natural-light photography of rock formations in Scandinavia during a google search, and realized just how much like living beings they looked, all gnarly and distorted. The same with some of England's "dancing maiden" rock formations. Given the way the human mind works, I tend to think that "stone giants" come from the same source for Native Americans as Europeans. This in no way invalidates, though, the very real possibility, and even likelihood, that some tribes had a genetic tendency toward lesser and greater stature and still had their standouts of unusual height.

The last story in your post sounds plausible to me, but not for any nefarious reasons; my understanding is that many archeological finds are kept as quiet as possible for as long as possible because of the dangers of grave-robbers. Even within the United States, which compared to some locations (say, the middle of the Amazonian jungle) has a crapton of security, "artifact hunters" can be dangerous to the archeologists as well as the dig and its contents.

Mordecai Rodnipoff link
8/3/2013 03:15:18 pm

Hey Varika,

I agree that race, politics, and religious ideologies are very important to discuss here. After looking at many of these news accounts, historical, diaries, Smithsonian's reports, especially in the latter 19th cen. there was utter disrespect for the Native American remains. In fact a popular theory was that the Indians could not have built many of the mounds, and any tall skeletons occasionally found found must have been evidence of non- Native American race of mound builders, white giants -- although into the early 1900's and 1920's the Smithsonian under Ales Hrdlicka's tenure tended to portray the Native Americans in an even more racist light, and primitive, debunking any notion of giants or very tall Native Americans, Hrdlicka believed no one came to N America any earlier than 4,000 - 5,000 yrs ago, he was incredibly racist and for instance, compared African babies with young apes. Some Mormons believe these tall skeleton reports are evidence of the Nephi, or Jaredites, and some Christians believe they are evidence of Nephilim, while white supremacists might take it as evidence of vikings, or a super Aryan race. But actually, scholars like Ross Hamilton and the late Native American Author Vine Deloria found that these reports of anomalous skeletons of tall stature in fact tended to support some of the tribal traditions of giants among their people, and tribes of large stature they sometimes warred against. Some of their legends speak of stone giants, sasquatch types, others speak of very tall men of robust physique, perhaps the Allegewi or Tallegewi some authors have made reference. In 2002 Vine Deloria met with elders up in Washington state to discuss the traditions of giants and little people. Here is a link to his radio interview 11 years ago discussing the giants: http://www.lauralee.com/index.cgi?pid=3534

Reply
Mordecai Rodnipoff
8/3/2013 03:16:12 pm

oops posted twice. sorry. lol

Mordecai Rodnipoff
8/3/2013 03:24:23 pm

Mexico city * lol I meant New Mexico.

Reply
Cg chase
7/31/2014 05:52:19 am

Believe what you will but several local museums throughout the Hopewell region has compelling evidence of giants including tools. Funny how we can find one ancient dinosaur bone and call it a species but find one giant human bone and call it an anomaly. The selective minds of humans.

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mark
9/1/2014 03:12:41 am

Cg chase just won the internet

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