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? On January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha, Brazil, saw a four foot creature with oily skin and red eyes crouched by a wall. The army was in town that morning. A policeman said to have handled it died a month later. Cover story, or Brazil’s Roswell?
What do you think about this? In 1800 settlers at Conneaut, Ohio, opened a four acre burial ground in rows and reported skeletons over seven feet, jaws that fit over a man’s face, double rows of teeth. The graves were plowed under within a generation. Tall tale, or a people buried twice?
What do you think about this? The Iron Pillar of Delhi is six tons of forged iron from around 400 AD. It has stood outside through 1,600 years of monsoons and never rusted, thanks to a protective film from phosphorus rich iron nobody made again. Lucky recipe, or knowledge lost on purpose?
What do you think about this? North Sea trawlers pull up mammoth teeth, flint tools and a carved harpoon from 120 feet deep. Until 8,000 years ago that seabed was Doggerland, a forested land the size of Britain, drowned by rising seas and a tsunami. The lost land of every old story?
What do you think about this? In 1974 a Florida family found a polished 22 pound steel ball in burned brush. It hummed when a guitar played, rolled across rooms on its own and changed direction. Navy X rays showed objects inside, origin unknown. Valve ball, or something that landed?
What do you think about this? The Whaley House in San Diego was built in 1857 where a man was slowly hanged five years earlier. A baby and a daughter later died inside. Visitors report footsteps in empty rooms and a pressure on the throat where the gallows stood. Old house, or long memory?
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