INTRODUCTION
THE GIANT PHENOMENON AND BLACK HOLES OF SCIENTIFIC ENDEAVOR
Who could forget the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark in which a crated “Ark of the Covenant” is wheeled into a massive top-secret warehouse? The final seconds of the movie are filled with rows of thousands of neatly stacked crates, all allegedly containing anomalous finds that the government sought to keep hidden from the public eye—out of sight, out of mind. Only in the conclusion to the Indiana Jones saga, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, do we get a glimpse of where the warehouse of forbidden items was actually located: at a restricted government facility in the Desert Southwest, probably Area 51.*1
Of course, we know this was merely an invention of Hollywood, nothing more. Right? No, not really, for sadly enough there really are black holes of scientific endeavor where startling new discoveries have been banished, to never again see the light of day. These knowledge pits are the point of no return for many findings considered to be too radical to fit into the established paradigm; they are suppressed by institutions intent on maintaining the status quo.
A perfect example of this type of suppression occurred in 1962, when an archaeological dig in Mexico, at Hueyatlaco, a Paleo-Indian site 121 kilometers southeast of Mexico City, yielded discoveries that did not fit within the accepted time line. In 1962, Mexican archaeologist Juan Armenta Camacho and American archaeologist Cynthia Irwin-Williams unearthed sophisticated stone tools dating to 250,000 BP, which upended traditional theories about the cultural development of early humans. Startled by the anomalous nature of what they discovered, these two archaeologists attempted to suppress the findings. In 1966, graduate student Virginia Steen-McIntyre joined their dig and, unlike the other two archaeologists, was very outspoken about discussing and attempting to publish the earth-shattering news; however, she was to face tremendous roadblocks in her efforts. Her statements were ridiculed—it was as though she were claiming that Bigfoot lived in the White House! She was promptly fired from her position as geologist and field archaeologist and stripped of her prestige as a respected member of the academic community. Furthermore, never again was she able to get a job in her beloved field of archaeology or any legitimate position as a mainstream geologist (Gallegos 2009, 10).
Steen-McIntyre had this to say about the matter in a letter she wrote to Estella Leopold, the associate editor of Quaternary Research:
The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of “Enigmatic Data,” data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn’t realize the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory of human evolution had become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period. (gdub 2012)
Another victim of this knowledge filter is Polish scholar Immanuel Velikovsky. Although the late, great Carl Sagan readily identified himself with what my friend John Anthony West calls the priesthood of science, Sagan made a heroic appeal on behalf of Velikovsky, who is best known for his book Worlds in Collision, published in 1950. Velikovsky’s theories included the idea that Venus was actually an anomaly generated in the Jovian system*2 (Sagan 1980, 90–91). Velikovsky maintained that the planet, or comet as he called it, left the gravitational influence of Jupiter and entered the inner solar system approximately 3500 BCE. During two close encounters with Earth in 1450 BCE, the direction of Earth’s rotation was altered radically (Alexander 2005, 21–24).
According to Velikovsky, Earth’s rotation then reverted to its original direction on its next pass through the orbit of the inner solar system. In the second and final confrontation with Earth, the comet caused substantial volcanism, floods, and even the parting of the Red Sea as described in the Book of Exodus. Following this phase of its journey, it settled into its current orbit and became the planet Venus as we know it today.†1
Sagan reported that the academic community attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas about Venus, and he (Sagan) condemned these actions. Velikovsky was forbidden from speaking at universities and publishing his ideas in scientific journals, and newspapers and other media were dissuaded from releasing updates on his research. “Science,” concluded Sagan, “is generated by and devoted to free inquiry; the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science” (1980, 90–91).
Against this broader backdrop of systemic scientific suppression we have the fields of modern-day archaeology and anthropology, whose gatekeepers have severely curtailed the potentialities of much current comprehensive scholarly research that seeks to explore the anomalous and fascinating question of whether giants were part of hominid evolution on Earth. Given that this is the case, my work here is to provide evidence that the race of giants theory is a true one. In so doing, I call upon and cite innumerable accounts in the written record that are difficult to disprove. Here is but a sampling of what awaits you in the pages of this book.
In referencing the possibility of giants in ancient North America, the late Native American author, historian, and theologian Vine Deloria wrote:
The first hint we had about the possible existence of an actual race of tall, strong, and intellectually sophisticated people, was in researching old township and county records. Many of these were quoting from old diaries and letters that were combined, for posterity, in the 1800s, from diaries going back to the 1700s. Some of these old county and regional history books contain real gems because the people were not subjected to a rigid indoctrination about evolution and were astonished about what they found and honestly reported it. (“Holocaust of Giants”)
The building up of infrastructure in the mid-1800s in the United States—the construction of a road system, the breaking of new ground for the construction of homes, and the building of key government and community buildings—revealed hundreds of human skeletons of gigantic stature. The following account originated around the year 1800 in Ohio:
There were mounds situated in the eastern part of the village of Conneaut and an extensive burying-ground near the Presbyterian church, which appear to have had no connection with the burying-places of the Indians. Among the human bones founds in the mounds were some belonging to men of gigantic structure. Some of the skulls were of sufficient capacity to admit the head of an ordinary man, and jaw bones that might have been fitted on over the face with equal facility; the other bones were proportionately large. The burial-ground referred to contained about four acres, and with the exception of a slight angle in conformity with the natural contour of the ground was in the form of an oblong square. It appeared to have been accurately surveyed into lots running from north to south, and exhibited all the order and propriety of arrangement deemed necessary to constitute Christian burial. (“Holocaust of Giants”)
And we have this account in an article entitled “Mysterious Giant Human Skeleton Discovered in Saudi Arabia,” which was recently published on numerous sites on the Internet. The author of the article, who elected to remain anonymous, writes:
Recent gas exploration activity in the southeast region of the Arabian Desert uncovered the skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size. The region of the Arabian Desert is called the Empty Quarter, or in Arabic, “Rab-Ul-Khalee.” The Aramco Exploration team made the discovery. As God states in the Qu’ran, He had created people of phenomenal size the likes of which He has not created since. These were the people of Aad where Prophet Hud was sent. They were very tall, big, and very powerful, such that they could put their arms around a tree trunk and uproot it. After these people, who were given all the power, turned against God and the Prophet and transgressed beyond all boundaries set by God. As a result they were destroyed. Ulema’s [sic] of Saudi Arabia believe these to be the remains of the people of Aad. Saudi Military has secured the whole area and no one is allowed to enter except the Aramco personnel. It has been kept in secrecy, but a military helicopter took some pictures from the air and one of the pictures leaked out into the Internet in Saudi Arabia. (“Mysterious”)
Regardless of the evidence, institutions such as the Smithsonian, the U.S. government, and the majority of American universities have not only systematically discouraged investigation into reports or hard physical evidence of ancient peoples of gigantic stature, they have furtively buried the evidence. Why? The discovery of a race of giants is a threat to the established order. Disclosure would not only mean an end to the prevailing paradigm, but would also completely alter our world-view, given that an assumption about the validity of giants is necessarily inclusive of the idea that intelligent life on other planets is, in fact, a stark reality that we must face—whether we like it or not.
This book presents the historical, mythological, and archaeological evidence for “the race of giants” hypothesis. In this, it attempts to lay the foundation of several new theories, including the role giants played in human evolution. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did researching and writing it.