Catalina Island Giants

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?