Giant human skeletons: real or hoaxes?

[Mr.UFO]

Over the years, people have supposedly unearthed giant human skeletons ranging from about 7-and-a-half to 15 feet in height. Some say it's proof that giant humans once existed. Many of these finds were reported in newspapers in the 1890s and 1900s decade, when newspapers would often print tabloid type stories to sell more copies. However, rumors and stories of giant skeletons outside of newspapers have circulated over the years.

Of course, things such as this could be faked (and have been). But there was one story of about 60 giant human skeletons being found. If somebody was going to pull a giant skeleton hoax, they would probably stop at maybe four or five fake skeletons. They probably wouldn't make 60 of them. Also, some giant skeletons have been reported to have double rows of teeth on both the top and bottom of the jaw. Hoaxers probably wouldn't think of adding that. (The double rows of teeth suggests that the giants could be extraterrestrial in nature.) Another claim is that these skeletons were sent to the Smithsonian Institute in New York City, but the SI said they "lost" the samples, which GHS proponents say was a cover-up of the phenomenon.

Are these stories based in fact? Or are they just fantastic tales made up by bored people? What do you think?

On a personal note, I recently left a message on the Instagram page of paranormal investigator and beauty icon Susan Slaughter. She posted something back to me, and my heart fluttered.🥰 But the elephant in the room is that she's still a couple of sharp twisty things away from a full barbed wire fence, if you know what I mean. 🤪

[Kenemet]

No, not based in fact.

Newspapers liked to make sales.  Fantastic stories like these were popular fodder for these tales.

Many of the details in the stories (like the double teeth) were added much later (as in... about 30 years ago.)  

Wikipedia has a good article on the Aurora UFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident) that shows how these stories grow from a joke played by local pranksters to wildly imaginative tales spun on the Internet.  If you try to hunt down the original articles (check your local library to see if they have a subscription to newspapers.com), you'll find that the original and the current version often vary quite a bit.

Human anatomy isn't well designed.  7 1/2 feet to 8 1/2 feet in height is unusual but plausible (under the right conditions) for humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people) but they suffer from a lot of health problems.  15 feet in height... no.  For one thing, our hearts aren't THAT strong.  Giraffes reach 15 feet in height, but they have thicker heart walls and their blood vessels have specialized valves that keep the blood from flowing backward (https://iheart.polimi.it/en/the-incredible-cardio-circulatory-system-of-giraffes-a-challenge-to-gravity) 

[Mr.UFO]

2 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Wikipedia has a good article on the Aurora UFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident) that shows how these stories grow from a joke played by local pranksters to wildly imaginative tales spun on the Internet ...

15 feet in height... no.  For one thing, our hearts aren't THAT strong.  Giraffes reach 15 feet in height, but they have thicker heart walls and their blood vessels have specialized valves that keep the blood from flowing backward (https://iheart.polimi.it/en/the-incredible-cardio-circulatory-system-of-giraffes-a-challenge-to-gravity) 

The Aurora UFO crash is one of my favorite stories. The local paper said they were planning a funeral for the alien pilot. It was thought by UFO researchers that people in a small Texas town, especially in the 1890s, would be religious enough and serious enough about death to want to do that. But as you said, it could have been just a joke.

I'm pretty gullible, but I never believed some of the skeletons were 15 feet tall. I thought "C'mon, that's the height of a Tyrannosaurus Rex." You said a giraffe, which also illustrates the dubiousness of the tale.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

7 minutes ago, Mr.UFO said:

The Aurora UFO crash is one of my favorite stories. The local paper said they were planning a funeral for the alien pilot. It was thought by UFO researchers that people in a small Texas town, especially in the 1890s, would be religious enough and serious enough about death to want to do that. But as you said, it could have been just a joke.

I'm pretty gullible, but I never believed some of the skeletons were 15 feet tall. I thought "C'mon, that's the height of a Tyrannosaurus Rex." You said a giraffe, which also illustrates the dubiousness of the tale.

I like the idea that the locals were like "well, that's a poor fella. Better give him a good honest burial." 
There's talk of an actual headstone being carved for the traveller. 

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Unless the bones were of a different constituency then modern human bones, the circulatory system is more robust then modern humans and the neural transmission better than modern humans a giant human wouldn't fare too well in an Earth-type biome. Check out what happens to folks with gigantism (basically, they end up with dodgy bones, no sensation in their feet and heart problems). 

[Mr.UFO]

3 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Many of the details in the stories (like the double teeth) were added much later (as in... about 30 years ago.)

I can picture internet hoaxers saying to each other "Hey, let's say they had two rows of teeth." and then they laugh like Beavis and Butthead.

[Thanos5150]

5 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Wikipedia has a good article on the Aurora UFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident) that shows how these stories grow from a joke played by local pranksters to wildly imaginative tales spun on the Internet. 

Good grief. Once again you remind us how helpful it is to not take your word for it actually read the Wikipedia article: 

The hoax theory is primarily based on a 1980 [note Wikipedia can't even get the date right of the very article it cites-"good article"!] Time magazine interview with Etta Pegues, an 86 year old Aurora resident who claimed that Haydon had fabricated the entire story, stating that Haydon "wrote it as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora. The railroad bypassed us, and the town was dying."

The 1979 Time article:

Is it possible that a cigar-shaped spaceship descended over the tiny town of Aurora, Texas (pop. 237), and crashed into Judge J.S. Proctor’s windmill? And that a tiny spaceman was buried in the Aurora cemetery?

That was the tale sent to newspapers in nearby Dallas and Fort Worth one April day in 1897 by a local correspondent named S.E. Hayden. It was generally ridiculed at the time, and most citizens of Aurora still scoff. “Hayden wrote it as a joke and to bring interest to Aurora,” says Etta Pegues, 86. “The railroad bypassed us, and the town was dying.”

But UFO stories, told and retold, sometimes acquire a life of their own. Over the years some of the faithful have been trekking to Aurora to search for the small spaceman’s grave. “Sometimes they take souvenirs, and a couple of years back somebody stole the spaceman’s tombstone,” says H.R. Idell, the town marshal, referring to a big rock with a mysterious-looking crack in it. “But mostly folks just poke around in the ruins.”

Mrs. Pegues is scornful. Says she: “People wish so hard the story was true they really start believing it. Why, the judge never even had a windmill.”

So the source of it being a "joke" was one 86yr old Mrs Pegues, 4yrs old at the time the incident occurred, speaking to a reporter 82yrs after the fact. Sounds pretty solid. But what's interesting is the Wikipedia article once again says nothing you say it does- it says nothing of "local pranksters", but rather Mrs Pegues only refers to the original journalist who wrote the article, S.E. Haydon, and nowhere does it mention it is an example of "wildly imaginative tales spun on the Internet."  But since you think it is a good article lets continue:

"MUFON uncovered two new eyewitnesses to the crash. Mary Evans, who was 15 at the time, told of how her parents went to the crash site (they forbade her from going) and the discovery of the alien body. Charlie Stephens, who was age 10, told how he saw the airship trailing smoke as it headed north toward Aurora. He wanted to see what happened, but his father made him finish his chores; later, he told how his father went to town the next day and saw wreckage from the crash.

MUFON then investigated the Aurora Cemetery and uncovered a grave marker that appeared to show a flying saucer of some sort, as well as readings from its metal detector. MUFON asked for permission to exhume the site, but the cemetery association declined permission. After the MUFON investigation, the marker mysteriously disappeared from the cemetery and a three-inch pipe was placed into the ground; MUFON's metal detector no longer picked up metal readings from the grave, thus it was presumed that the metal was removed from the grave.

MUFON's report eventually stated that the evidence was inconclusive, but did not rule out the possibility of a hoax. The episode featured an interview with Mayor Brammer who discussed the town's tragic history."

To quote you again: "Wikipedia has a good article on the Aurora UFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident) that shows how these stories grow from a joke played by local pranksters to wildly imaginative tales spun on the Internet."  

Could it have been a hoax-sure. Is the Wikipedia article remotely what you claim it to be? Once again, no. 

 

Edited September 25 by Thanos5150

[qxcontinuum]

3 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Unless the bones were of a different constituency then modern human bones, the circulatory system is more robust then modern humans and the neural transmission better than modern humans a giant human wouldn't fare too well in an Earth-type biome. Check out what happens to folks with gigantism (basically, they end up with dodgy bones, no sensation in their feet and heart problems). 

Actually that's not what happend in the past. All creature were giantnormous and there was Gigantopithecus in China, a gorilla like ape standing 10 feet tall just until 200k years ago. If evolution wouldn't have been interrupted in a distant past, likely we could have been evolved to be 12 even 14 feet tall. 

Edited September 25 by qxcontinuum

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

19 minutes ago, qxcontinuum said:

Actually that's not what happend in the past. All creature were giantnormous and there was Gigantopithecus in China, a gorilla like ape standing 10 feet tall just until 200k years ago. If evolution wouldn't have been interrupted in a distant past, likely we could have been evolved to be 12 even 14 feet tall. 

the atmosphere was different back then IIRC there was a greater oxygenisation in the atmosphere. 
Also, I spoke of humans. 
A human body could not sustain the musicalature of even a modern great ape, let alone a gorilla.

[The_Spartan]

Giant Humans can never exist.
Simply due to the square cube law.

[Abramelin]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/giant-skeleton-uncovered-saudi-arabia/

 

[Piney]

7 hours ago, qxcontinuum said:

Actually that's not what happend in the past. All creature were giantnormous and there was Gigantopithecus in China, a gorilla like ape standing 10 feet tall just until 200k years ago. If evolution wouldn't have been interrupted in a distant past, likely we could have been evolved to be 12 even 14 feet tall. 

Evolution wasn't "interrupted". It is a product of environmental stresses and there is no advantage to us being gigantic. 

[Trelane]

13 hours ago, Mr.UFO said:

The Aurora UFO crash is one of my favorite stories. The local paper said they were planning a funeral for the alien pilot. It was thought by UFO researchers that people in a small Texas town, especially in the 1890s, would be religious enough and serious enough about death to want to do that. But as you said, it could have been just a joke.

I'm pretty gullible, but I never believed some of the skeletons were 15 feet tall. I thought "C'mon, that's the height of a Tyrannosaurus Rex." You said a giraffe, which also illustrates the dubiousness of the tale.

Giants, angels, mermaids, and mysterious airships are but a few of these fantastical items that newspapers would print to 'juice' their sales. Airships being one of the most notorious as these reports have been use by the pro-alien visitation crowd as proof of ET visitation. "The media wasn't controlled by the govt. back then, they could report the truth." is the usual line I read from these folks. Hilariously ignorant.

[Kenemet]

10 hours ago, qxcontinuum said:

Actually that's not what happend in the past. All creature were giantnormous and there was Gigantopithecus in China, a gorilla like ape standing 10 feet tall just until 200k years ago. If evolution wouldn't have been interrupted in a distant past, likely we could have been evolved to be 12 even 14 feet tall. 

Gigantopithecus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus) isn't a human ancestor.  Its closest living relative is the orangutan.  They are built differently than humans (longer arms, non-erect posture, thicker bones - to start.) 

We don't have a full skeleton of Gigantopithecus -- we have some teeth and jaw pieces.  The original discovery was made from some teeth found in a shipment of "dragon bones."  The 12 foot height was the initial estimate based on the size of the teeth -- current estimate is that they were about 9 feet tall (just at the upper range of known living human beings.)

[Kenemet]

14 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

I like the idea that the locals were like "well, that's a poor fella. Better give him a good honest burial." 
There's talk of an actual headstone being carved for the traveller. 

We actually visited Aurora and went to Ned's grave many years ago.  The city of Aurora has an archival photo of the newspaper page on its website!  https://www.auroratexas.gov/community/history/

NBCDFW has a cute article on it, along with photos of Ned's grave.  Fun fact:  because he was given a "Christian burial" the grave can't be opened without the permission of his proven relatives. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/not-of-this-world-mystery-of-reported-alien-crash-lives-on-in-aurora/2735015/

[Thanos5150]

11 hours ago, qxcontinuum said:

Actually that's not what happend in the past. All creature were giantnormous and there was Gigantopithecus in China, a gorilla like ape standing 10 feet tall just until 200k years ago.

Gigantopithecus

Total size estimates are highly speculative because only tooth and jaw elements are known, and molar size and total body weight do not always correlate, such as in the case of postcanine megadontia hominins (small-bodied primate exhibiting massive molars and thick enamel).^[18]

It is more likely the molar size is due to diet and not a directly proportional representation of size.  

Molar Enamel Thickness and Dentine Horn Height in Gigantopithecus blacki

Regardless, mega fauna of all kinds, not just large apes, were still the norm until the end of the Pleistocene but at no point in the 4+ million year history of their existence were hominins ever one of them if only the opposite. It wasn't until the arrival of Homo erectus that humans reached a height consistently above 5ft (though there are still examples attributed to him under 5ft), let alone having even reached 6ft, with prior species being in the 3.5-4.5ft range with the tallest a little over 5ft.

Though Neanderthal was quite robust he was not very tall falling in the mid to low 5ft range. It wasn't until the arrival of Cro-Magnon c. 45ya humans averaged above 5.5ft with the upper ranges a little over 6ft. The "extreme" height we see today of humans commonly being above 6ft is a relatively recent phenomenon having nothing to do with evolution, but rather breeding, nutrition, general health, and economic/social stability the least of which in just in the last 150yrs or so with some populations being over 7in taller on average than their 19th century counterparts.   

This is not to say there could not have been particularly tall individuals who may have carried on and fostered this trait though selective breeding, i.e. the tallest males keep mating with the tallest females leading to small populations of relatively tall individuals, even unusually tall say like 7ft, but the notion of a "race of giants" otherwise has little to no merit on any level.    

Quote

If evolution wouldn't have been interrupted in a distant past, likely we could have been evolved to be 12 even 14 feet tall. 

Right....

And when we you say this interruption occurred exactly because otherwise the exact opposite is true.  

Edited September 25 by Thanos5150

[Mr.UFO]

One "ancient astronaut" theory states that space alien scientists mixed their DNA with that of early man. The aliens thought the resulting females were nice looking, and reproduced with them. The resulting offspring were giants, who were deranged and violent. The great flood happened because God wanted to get rid of the dangerous giants.

Some like to believe that story is real. But people today don't give the people of biblical times enough credit -- they could probably write science fiction just like people do now. The stories were made up to entertain themselves in a world without televisions, radios, movies, or the printing press.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

53 minutes ago, Mr.UFO said:

One "ancient astronaut" theory states that space alien scientists mixed their DNA with that of early man. The aliens thought the resulting females were nice looking, and reproduced with them. The resulting offspring were giants, who were deranged and violent. The great flood happened because God wanted to get rid of the dangerous giants.

It's almost as if the AA proponents have just taken a Bible story and gone "not God, it's aliens". 

[Mr.UFO]

I've seen giant human skeletons -- last Halloween in some people's yards. 😄 Seriously, those things must be expensive!

[Kenemet]

2 hours ago, Mr.UFO said:

One "ancient astronaut" theory states that space alien scientists mixed their DNA with that of early man. The aliens thought the resulting females were nice looking, and reproduced with them. The resulting offspring were giants, who were deranged and violent. The great flood happened because God wanted to get rid of the dangerous giants.

Some like to believe that story is real. But people today don't give the people of biblical times enough credit -- they could probably write science fiction just like people do now. The stories were made up to entertain themselves in a world without televisions, radios, movies, or the printing press.

I'm always amused by the idea that these fabulous (sex starved) alien scientists never have women alien scientists.  Somehow it's never a UFO full of desperate women scientists looking for hunky males.

[Mr.UFO]

2 hours ago, Kenemet said:

I'm always amused by the idea that these fabulous (sex starved) alien scientists never have women alien scientists.  Somehow it's never a UFO full of desperate women scientists looking for hunky males.

There's an idea for a tacky reality show in there somewhere.

[jethrofloyd]

19 hours ago, The_Spartan said:

Giant Humans can never exists.

Are you sure? Have you ever watched NFL League? NY Giants exists a pretty well.

[Mr.UFO]

33 minutes ago, jethrofloyd said:

Are you sure? Have you ever watched NFL League? NY Giants exists a pretty well.

They exist, but not well. 😝

[Abramelin]

8 hours ago, Kenemet said:

I'm always amused by the idea that these fabulous (sex starved) alien scientists never have women alien scientists.  Somehow it's never a UFO full of desperate women scientists looking for hunky males.

I don't know if she was 'sex starved', but Billie Meier claimed to have met a female ET:

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/picture-of-the-alien-asket-of-the-collection-of-eduard-news-photo/1173995712

😍

[Trelane]

14 hours ago, Mr.UFO said:

I've seen giant human skeletons -- last Halloween in some people's yards. 😄 Seriously, those things must be expensive!

I have a neighbor right down the road from me with a few. Something like almost 20 ft tall. I'll try to snap some photos this weekend.