The promoters quickly doubled the admission fee. Not true was the Cardiff Giant, one of America’s most famous archaeological hoaxes that turned out to be a 10-foot fake giant dug up on a farm in central New York, near Syracuse in 1869.Ĭrowds of gawkers ponied up 25 cents per person to see the newly unearthed “giant.” Those reports are likely true, with the “giants” being maybe 7 feet tall. More on Kincaid later - but first the giants:Įarly explorers including Ferdinand Magellan and Francis Drake reported meeting living giants in Patagonia in the southern tip of South America - possibly the Tehuelche Indians. Kincaid (or Kinkaid), who a newspaper report says was the first white male born in Idaho, supposedly discovered a giant cave complex in the Grand Canyon, believed to be near Marble Canyon, filled with ancient Egyptian and Asian artifacts. However, modern technology also gives us the ability to better detect the fakes.Ī man from Lewiston named G.E. Modern technology makes it easy to create fake photos, so those hoaxes won’t go away soon. The internet loves stories like that - and the bigger the giant, the better the story.Īccording to Guinness, the tallest man in proven medical history was Robert Pershing Wadlow (1918-1940), an American from Alton, Ill., who stood 8-foot-11 tall. Piled in layers, one upon top of the other, were some two hundred skeletons of human beings nearly perfect … men of gigantic stature, some of them measuring nine feet, very few of them being less than seven feet.” “When they got to five or six feet below the surface, a strange sight met them. Nathaniel Wardell, Messers Orin Wardell (of Toronto), and Daniel Fredenburg were digging on the farm of the latter gentleman, which is on the banks of the Grand River, in the township of Cayuga. Nevertheless, a typical report in those days was an article in 1871 published by the Toronto Daily Telegraph that said, “Rev. The condition begins in childhood, when a malfunctioning pituitary gland causes abnormal growth.”
National Geographic News debunks that there ever were giants as big as the sizes reported - quickly shifting the subject to gigantism, which they correctly say “is extremely rare, today affecting about three people in a million worldwide. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s there were published reports of finding human skeletons around the world - some as tall as 35 feet.
Scientists - many “pseudo” - have concocted fake discoveries or claims, later discredited, and there’s never been a shortage of writers masquerading as journalists who were delighted to publish those stories - usually with some embellishment. So does National Geographic.įounded in 1846, the Smithsonian has been battling the “Giant Skeleton Unearthed” story for more than 100 years, yet the rumor persists and still fascinates the public - as it did in the 19th century newspapers that loved to sensationalize the news.įor some reason or another archeology seems to be a magnet for fake history - especially subjects like giants and historic artifacts. In the early 1900s, giant skeletons up to 12 feet tall found in the United States were sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., the official depository for nearly all things American - and never seen again. Image from John Byrons ∺ Voyage Round the World in His Majestys Ship the Dolphin (1767) of English sailor offering bread to Patagonian giant woman, could likely be exaggeration of Patagonian Tehuelche Indian giants reported by Magellan and Drake.
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