What do you think about this?
Just off the coast of Southern California sits Santa Catalina Island. In 1919, a man named Ralph Glidden began digging there, and over the years that followed he claimed to have unearthed the remains of thousands of people from ancient burial sites across the island. That part is documented. The part that started the legend was his other claim. Among the bones, Glidden said, were skeletons of an unusual size. People who stood far taller than the Native peoples known to have lived there, some he described as approaching seven feet and beyond.
He took photographs. He built a strange little museum around the collection. And then mainstream archaeology pushed back hard. Scientists who later examined surviving records found no solid proof of any race of giants, and much of Glidden’s work was dismissed as showmanship.
Yet the photographs exist. The Channel Islands hold some of the oldest human remains ever found in North America, dating back roughly thirteen thousand years. And stories of unusually tall ancient people turn up in accounts up and down the California coast.
Could it be that something real sits buried under the layers of exaggeration?
A carnival hoax built for ticket sales, or a genuine anomaly the textbooks chose to bury? What do you think Glidden actually dug up on that island?
What do you think about this? Over five months from late 1989, more than 13,000 people in Belgium reported a silent black triangle with three corner lights. In March 1990 two F sixteen jets locked radar on it, and it made moves no pilot could survive. Secret aircraft, or a genuine visitor?
What do you think about this? The Abenaki spoke of something in Lake Champlain long before Europeans arrived, and Port Henry still keeps a sign counting sightings. In 1977 Sandra Mansi photographed a long neck and a dark hump, and no hoax was ever found in it. Log, or a real animal?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
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