This Conspiracy Claims the Smithsonian Destroys Giant Skeletons
Around the turn of the 20th century, The New York Times, London Globe, and Scientific American published articles purporting the discovery of gigantic human skeletons, concluding that the remains were sent to the Smithsonian for further study. But the fact that this evidence was never again seen or reported, continues to elicit questions of whether the Smithsonian destroys giant skeletons in order to cover up an inconvenient anomaly in the archeological narrative we’ve been told.
The question has been heatedly debated over the past century or more, with researchers finding what appears to be corroborating evidence, while skeptics say the bones were simply those of massive prehistoric animals, reclassified by the Smithsonian and displayed in museums to this day.
And while physical evidence remains tenuous, there is a seemingly endless trail of written and anecdotal suggestion that a larger race of humans once walked the Earth.
A Brief History of the Smithsonian
Though it may not be immediately obvious, the Smithsonian Institution is an extension of the U.S. government with congressional members sitting on its Board of Regents. It was initially founded as “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,” at the endowment of philanthropist, chemist, and mineralogist James Smithson.
And while it’s not a regulatory agency, it is so intrinsically tied to government that it claims immunity from state and local regulations, as well as immunity from lawsuits unless authorized by Congress.
The Smithsonian was established in 1846, and was tasked with the mission of organizing the anthropological history of the United States. It is sometimes referred to as “the nation’s attic,” as it has amassed somewhere in the range of 154 million items between its myriad museums, research centers, and various facilities.
But with phrases like “diffusing knowledge,” coming from a government agency that’s been influencing the course of history since the Eurocentric days of manifest destiny, one might be skeptical about what kind of knowledge was spread and which powers it served.
Richard Dewhurst, author of The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America, points to a man named John Wesley Powell, the U.S. Director of Ethnology in 1879 who ran the Smithsonian in its nascent years. In his research, Dewhurst uncovered what he refers to as the Powell Doctrine – a paper issued on behalf of the Smithsonian, which issued a decree that no anthropological research should consider any talk of lost tribes henceforth, while also describing natives as uncultured, savage, and lacking signs of higher intellect.
“Hence it will be seen that it is illegitimate to use any pictographic matter of a date anterior to the discovery of the continent by Columbus for historic purposes,” Powell wrote.
It’s unclear whether this was Powell’s decision or if it came from instructions on high, however Dewhurst believes its clear manifest destiny tone led to the subsequent Smithsonian cover up of an ancient race of giants who preceded Native Americans.
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The Smithsonian Destroys Giant Skulls
Looking back at newspaper clippings dating from the late 1800s into the early 1900s, Dewhurst found a multitude of instances in which citizens from disparate areas of the country uncovered massive bones, of seemingly human origin. Upon reporting these discoveries to media outlets or authorities, Dewhurst said unsuspecting citizens would shortly receive a visit from members of the Smithsonian who wasted no time sequestering the bones – allegedly bringing them to a museum or research facility, but which were never seen again.
One could also find instances of giant skulls and skeletons in local papers with pictures to boot. Take for instance this photo from the San Antonio Press showing a giant skull next to two normal skulls for size comparison.
It’s worth mentioning that the time period when these skeletal remains were found was drastically different from today — yellow journalism was rampant even for some of the publications we might consider more esteemed.
Religion was also a dominating factor in many people’s lives, and attempts to find literal instances of biblical stories was highly sought after. This has become one of the primary arguments against these accounts, as naysayers believe people created counterfeit skeletons or confused the bones of prehistoric megafauna and large animals for humans, hoping they had found proof in the existence of the Nephilim of the Old Testament.
Giants Discovered Throughout the World?
The U.S. is not the only country in which these alleged giants of antiquity are said to have been found. In fact, there are accounts dating back several millennia, which speak of encounters with living giants or the relics hinting at their existence.
In the world’s largest prehistoric copper mine in Wales there are accounts of the discovery of thousands of massive sledgehammers alleged to weigh somewhere in the range of 60 lbs.
Whether there’s any validity to this assertion is debatable, though if true would require a larger-than-life human with incredible strength to have worked the mine and wielded such a tool – the average sledgehammer today rarely weighs more than 20 lbs. This repository, known as the Great Orme mine or the “Stonehenge of copper mining,” dates back some 3,500 years ago.
Another more well-known instance of alleged giants comes from the writings of Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who wrote of a giant race upon discovering Patagonia.
“One day we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing, singing, and throwing dust on his head.” Pigafetta wrote.
“The captain-general sent one of our men to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace. Having done that, the man led the giant to an islet where the captain-general was waiting; When the giant was in the captain-general’s and our presence he marveled greatly and made signs with one finger raised upward, believing we had come from the sky. He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned.”
According to the writings of Pigafetta, Magellan and crew attempted to return to Italy with two of the giants they had encountered, though they were unable to survive the long trip back across the Atlantic.
Skeptics say the people referred to in these accounts were likely members of the Tehuelche – a native tribe that may have stood slightly larger in stature due to the strength required to survive in Patagonia’s harsh climate, though it’s questionable whether they were much larger in height than the average human.
But there are in fact a number of photographs from the late 1800s showing members of the Ona tribe that inhabited the Tierra del Fuego region of Patagonia who clearly stood significantly taller than most humans – six-and-a-half-foot-tall women and men well over seven feet.
Ona natives next to a man of average height
This account has also been called into question as some say it may have simply been an instance of giantism, with subsequent reports embellished as to make Magellan’s travels sound more exciting.
However, this account was later confirmed by English explorer James Byron, whose story of encountering a race of 9-foot giants in Patagonia was published by the London Chronicle. Other writings from the expeditions of Sir Francis Drake, Francis Fletcher and Sir Thomas Cavendish also reported towering Patagonians and their deceased bodies.
Could these native tribes corroborate the questionable stories of ancient European explorers?
Still skeptical about the alleged existence of giant humans on Earth? Check out this documentary A Race of Giants:
About the Author
Out of Place Artifacts; Who Really Discovered America?
There are a number of details that run counter to Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas glossed over in our society’s dominant narrative. The fact that he wasn’t the first old world explorer to discover the Americas is often met with strong resistance, despite numerous out of place artifacts and unexplained archeology telling a different story. So, who discovered the Americas?
Did Columbus Discover America?
The actual discovery of the Americas comes down to a matter of perspective. Obviously, the indigenous people already living in the Americas are the true discoverers, but from a European or old-world context the credit is mostly given to Columbus. But if the definition of making a discovery means understanding what you’ve found, did Columbus really discover America?
Columbus believed he had arrived in Asia and was interacting with the denizens of India, hence the name he gave them. He never understood that he had actually landed on an entirely different continent. But this is why America was named after Vespucci rather than being called Columbia, with his realized discovery a decade later.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that it became nationally recognized that a Norse explorer discovered the continent before these two Italian explorers. Leif Erikson and a small group of Icelanders landed in what is now modern-day Canada on the tip of Newfoundland. Erikson and company established a small settlement in a site called L’Anse aux Meadows, nearly 500 years before Columbus, in the year 1000.
The Vinland Map
For a long time, this Norse presence was disputed as myth, until there was so much conclusive archeological evidence that history had to be reconsidered. One of these artifacts, the Vinland Map, showed cartographic evidence of the Norse discovery, though its legitimacy is still debated, despite carbon dating placing it at least 50 years before Columbus’ discovery.
Out of Place Artifacts
There have been a number of anomalous finds suggesting that the Norse weren’t the only ones to have predated Columbus in discovering the new world, making it possible that even Erikson’s landing was predated.
A number of discoveries involving Roman artifacts have raised archeologists’ eyebrows throughout both of the Americas. Unsurprisingly, these too have experienced dismissal and cover-up.
In Brazil’s Guanabara Bay a sunken shipwreck was discovered appearing to be the remains of an ancient Roman ship. Among the submerged ruins were a number of large terracotta amphorae, tall jars that were made during the Roman empire.
The jars were dated between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, definitively proving their origin from the Roman Empire. This type of pottery was used to transport anything from wine, to olive oil, and grains.
Their discovery was made by marine archeologist and treasure hunter, Robert Marx, who turned over the jars to the Brazilian government, under the assumption that he would have the opportunity to return to the site and explore further. When he returned however, he found that the Brazilian Navy had dumped silt over the wreckage, literally covering up his discovery.
When Marx confronted the Brazilian government, he said he was told that Brazilians don’t care about the past and they don’t want to replace Pedro Alvares Cabral as the official European discoverer of the country.
Marx was also given a bizarre story by a Brazilian businessman who said that he had ordered a potter in Portugal to recreate the jars and had sunk them in the bay to “age” them, but had only recovered a few. This absurd story was less than convincing to Marx, while the government’s response added to his skepticism.
There is other evidence of a Roman presence in the Americas further north at the Calixtlahuaca Temple in the Toluca Valley just outside of Mexico City. There, archeologist Jose Garcia Payón found another terracotta artifact that appeared to come from the ancient Roman Empire.
Payon found the carved head of what experts say is a depiction of a Roman during the Hellenistic period, around 200 AD. The head was found underneath two cemented floors inside a pyramidal structure, that had remained intact since before the Calixtlahuaca civilization.
Though no one has definitively answered the question of how the terracotta head made it there, a study by Romeo Hristov and Santiago Genovés proved its antiquity through the use of thermoluminescence dating. The authors used the most conservative timespan in their paper, dating the head between 870 B.C. – 1270 A.D.
This broad range still went counter to the arguments of detractors who believed the head to have been created during colonial times, while lending to the argument that it must have been of Roman provenance. But how did this out of place artifact get there?
Roman Coin in North America
Several caches of Roman coins have been found buried throughout North America, dating back to the 16th century. This has led many to believe that it could be evidence of a pre-Columbian European presence. While numismatists and archeologists are often skeptical, it has led them to at least examine whether there could be any credibility to this theory.
A study conducted by Jeremiah Epstein, details 40 reports of anomalous coins found throughout the United States, with some appearing in Native American burial mounds.
Roman Bronze Coin
Epstein noticed that the majority of coins found in excavations of land during construction or in backyards came from collectors or were deliberately placed as hoaxes. The discovery of several ancient Israeli shekels, known as Bar Kokhba coins, were one of the more intriguing findings as they were discovered in disparate locations throughout Kentucky.
These coins originally marked an Israeli rebellion against the Roman Empire and were only produced during a three-year period, from 132-135 AD. The coins turned out to be fraudulent or commemorative tokens given to Jewish immigrants, despite newspapers from the time of their discovery heralding them as being authentic.
Overall Epstein concluded that most of the coins were either lost in more modern times by numismatists or forged, but he was criticized by some colleagues for his negative and dismissive tone and that it was only a beginning for future study. What he did conclude was that there was a possibility that Roman ships may have drifted accidentally to the new world, but couldn’t necessarily be considered a probable explanation.
Though there was one man who set out to prove it was highly probable that old world explorers could make the journey across the ocean to the new world, whether accidentally or intentionally.
Thor Heyerdahl embarked on the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 to prove the possibility of a pre-Columbian journey, by constructing a raft made of materials only available during pre-Columbian times. Heyerdahl believed that pre-Columbian South Americans sailed and populated Polynesia, particularly Easter Island.
His expeditions proved that this would have been possible when the Kon-Tiki successfully sailed over 4,000 miles from Peru to French Polynesia. Heyerdahl’s success inspired similar expeditions between South America and Polynesia as well as another trip of his own from northern Africa to Barbados, to prove the ancient Egyptians might have had contact with pre-Columbian South American cultures.
With the physical feasibility proven and a plethora of evidence that pre-Columbian voyages were made, it seems that there may be more to the story than we’ve been told. This, combined with the number of out of place artifacts that have ben found in the Americas beg to ask who truly discovered the Americas. Is it just a matter of historical inconvenience or is there another reason that new world countries have trouble entertaining alternative timelines?
