The Mystery of the Giants
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Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Why do so many of our ancient cultures refer to giants? Are they simply myth and legend, or did they once walk the earth? And are there tombs and skeletons of these giants now being discovered in Sardinia?

I am an archaeologist that worked in archaeology for 40 years. And never I seen something like this. I think it's entirely possible the giants of Sardinia were the Nephilim of the Old Testament. Absolutely possible. Do you believe that this tooth may have once belonged to a giant? I don't know. I never seen a piece of this size before this day. It sounds like something from a fantasy novel.

But over the last century or so, archaeologists have unearthed dozens of very large bone fragments and teeth from sites across the globe which are thought to have belonged to giant-sized humans who are believed to have measured several meters in height. Although the internet is full of fake pictures, in Sardinia, they believe they've found their actual burial sites. In this episode, investigative journalist Jamie Theakston travels to the island of Sardinia

to try and unravel the facts from the fiction and find answers to the burning questions: Who are these creatures? When did they live? And why are they not recognized as part of our human history? Part of the problem is that giants are associated with legends and mythology, and not reality.

And yet, the Old Testament in the book of Genesis clearly refers to a race of giants called the Nephilim, who it says were the offspring of the sons of the gods, who came to Earth to seed the daughters of man.

The best-selling author Zechariah Sitchin, in his Earth Chronicles books, called them the Anunnaki, a race of giants who came to Earth about 400,000 years ago to enslave humans and turn them into a mining colony. Although many academics dismiss his theories as fanciful, he claimed that the proof of this was written on ancient cuneiform tablets from around 3000 BC that were found in Mesopotamia.

Early migrations in the 3rd millennium BC indicate that travelers came to Sardinia. And these travelers, we have images of their boats and they resemble greatly the Mesopotamian boats. And sure enough, on Sardinia we find step pyramids. So it looks as though Mesopotamians did make a migration around the 3rd millennium into Sardinia. However, there appear already at that time to be legends of true giants.

giants who were huge. And what's interesting is that's validated, as we know, in the Bible and Genesis. In those times, giants, there were giants on the earth.

Well, what Sardinia has is not only a rich megalithic culture whose tombs, whose standing stones, whose monuments all harken to giants. Their names are about giants. But we have skeletal remains of people that are over eight, over 10, over 12 feet in size. And what's interesting is that it looks as though there's some truth to those

skeletal remains. In the Paoli Arbore region of southern Sardinia, over the last 50 years or so, local people have been discovering parts of huge bones, skeletons, and skulls in their fields, which legend has it once belonged to a race of giants who lived on the island long ago.

It's believed that these giants were laid to rest in giant tombs, the remains of which are still visible today, with roughly cut headstones and large, long trenches. But whatever lay inside them has long been removed. Many of the discoveries are made by local farmers, who come across the remains as they cultivate their crops, and it's caused something of a stir on this island.

as the authorities have struggled to explain what's going on to its increasingly bemused residents. There are even accusations of a cover-up, as some of the bones that have been handed in seem to have been locked away by the authorities, rather than examined or investigated. Marcello Polastri is a Sardinian journalist who's been investigating this story for several years, cataloguing the reports of discoveries and interviewing witnesses.

He's convinced that there is something going on. Right now, we're studying many cases that range from oral testimony to written evidence and even some material proof. Unfortunately, there is very little of the latter, but there are some bone fragments and teeth collected by some farmers which they have handed in to the authorities.

Marcello has arranged for Jamie to meet a local farmer and mayor who claims to have discovered some leg bones and the skull of a very large skeleton when he was a child. Marcello's friend Mauro was there to help translate. How big was the skeleton? Basically, it was over two meters tall. It seemed to me to be unusually tall and to establish some proportion

We first measured our own femur bones and after we compared them to the skeletons. We realized it must have been taller than two meters. Paolo, tell me a little bit more about the skull that you found. I think it belonged to a young person because the state of the teeth, which were perfectly shaped, they were quite sharp and weren't rotten or decayed.

because there wasn't any sign of real wear or tear and that really surprised me. Another thing that caught my eye was a hole in the right temporal lobe, a jagged hole which made me think they might have died due to head trauma. They were probably attacked with a club or maybe even a slingshot which was common at the time. A slingshot could have made that sort of wound. Jamie asked the farmer to show him the bones and skull that he'd discovered.

But as unlikely as it sounds, the farmer said that his father had destroyed them when he was still a boy. What could have been really fascinating evidence was no more. So was he making up this story about finding a giant skull? But as it was so long ago, and he was just a small boy at the time, it's certainly possible that he just misidentified a large animal skull. Jamie was keen to try and see the so-called giant tombs for himself.

So Marcello agreed to take him to an ancient burial site high in the Paule Arborei region, which is said to date back to around 2500 BC and where large burials had been unearthed. Once again, Marcello's friend Mauro tagged along as his translator. This is the tomb here? Yes, yes. And this is where...

You believe that giants would have been buried, huh? Yes, this is very big. It is said that the tomb was built for the sole purpose of providing a burial site to a giant, and then afterwards it was used much later by the local Sardinian people to bury their dead. Wow. It was built using huge stones,

Really large ones, one on top of another, with even larger ones used above.

So when would this have been made? It easily predates the birth of Christ by a thousand years and some scholars even think that it may go beyond that to 4000 BC, but no one knows with any certainty. So this is before the Nuragic period? It precedes the Nuragic period. First came the giants and these tombs and after followed the Nuragic people. So is this like a stone coffin?

Yes, it is like a stone coffin in the shape of a pyramid, where the skeletons of the dead were laid to rest on the ground, one on top of another.

— So how many bodies would have been buried in here? — Well, in this cavity, if we were talking about average men, maybe as many as 100. — 100. Normal people. — You believe that giants would have been buried in here? — Yes. I think it's possible that there were these giant men that built them. — Was this really a burial place for a giant? Or just an ancient tomb for a high-status human?

Certainly the location, high in the hills, shrouded in the low-level clouds, lends itself to ancient myths and legends. And it's easy to imagine a primitive race believing this was a sacred site connected to the gods of old. But is it really conclusive evidence of giants? My personal opinion is that a lot of evidence has been covered up

evidence that would disprove the official academic explanations. I know at least 80 people who have made discoveries, ordinary people, country people, who are not looking to profit from this story, and we also have many written sources and statements from witnesses about their finds. While the tomb isn't definitive proof of the giants, there are clues to who they might be in the ancient history of Sardinia.

From around 2000 BC, at the beginning of the Bronze Age, there was a race living on the island known as the Nuragic people. And by all accounts, they were more than a little interesting. They were seafarers, they were healers, and they were astronomers, building hundreds of small stone observatories all over the island that can still be seen today. But most importantly, they seemed to be aware of these giants.

According to ancient Nuragic tablets, there was a race of giants that used to live on the island. Professor Luigi Sana has spent a lifetime analyzing and decoding a series of very small bronze tablets, which were discovered near the town of Cabras. They're about the size of a human thumb, and Sana believes that they have references to these giants inscribed on them.

He thinks that it's possible that this race of giants were ancient navigators who came by boat from Greece around 3,000 years ago. They then conquered the indigenous people of Sardinia, married into the local tribes, and became what he believes were their god-kings. - - They got the word "giant," which in Sardinian is . - So hang on. So these tablets

have the word giants written on them yeah that's what they said the two of the four wow because this is really important for me because this is the first time i've seen any evidence or any reference to giants that's the proof that the giants were here the reason why the giants of sardinia could be the nephilim of the bible is not only do we have skeletal remains which are extraordinary

But the legends of these individuals go back a very long time. Before media became exploitive, there were legends of huge creatures. And these huge creatures aren't isolated to Sardinia. There's legends of these huge, gargantuan sort of men and women in other parts of the world. And what do they have in common? They all flourished around megalithic cultures.

Did giants really exist on Earth thousands of years ago? It sounds like something from a fairy tale. But here in Sardinia, there are claims that the skeletons of these creatures have been dug up all over the island. Time and time again, Jamie was told that the authorities were covering up the truth, and that the bones were being confiscated by the police and taken to laboratories in the main city of Calvary.

The further Jamie investigated, the more sightings of bizarre remains came out of the woodwork. Ingenio Argiolis is a local woodworker from the Taralba region in central Sardinia, which is where he says he found three huge skeletons back in the 1950s.

When I found the first tomb, I called a priest who came over and blessed our backyard with holy water. He then called the police sergeant, then he called the mayor, who then phoned Cagliari.

And then later that day, two big black cars showed up with four men inside. They each had large black carrier bags. When they got inside our home, they started interrogating my father. Then they seized all the skeletal remains he had found in our backyard, including the female skeleton's teeth and the pin that held her hair. They took everything.

including the bones, before taking off. After that raid, we never heard another thing about those skeletons.

I believe in Genio. I think he's telling the truth, and what he says is very important. He fought for many years to reveal the truth. It's a story that's been deliberately covered up. It's a story which straddles two world wars when, as a child, he discovered a giant skeleton in his father's yard. My theory is he'll die and take the secret to his grave. Dr. Alfonso Stiglitz is one of the most respected archaeologists in Sardinia. He's under no doubt that the whole giant's phenomena is just a myth that can be explained away.

What I don't understand is, you know, I've met all these people and they are sensible people and they are telling me that they found these giant bones. Why do you think that is? Well, first because the mystery is better than reality. We are more, how can I say, more happy if we think that our ancestors were

bigger than we, than us. They were richer than us. They were happier than us. But they were people, normal people like us. They were, of course, a giant culture, an extraordinary culture, but made by normal people. And this is extraordinary. So how do you feel about it, Jamie? You know, it's frustrating because

You meet these people who all seem very down to earth and very genuine and you know, they know what they've seen. They've seen large bones and it's difficult to doubt their integrity but it's just, it's frustrating not being able to see any evidence. A lot of people have told me about what they've seen. No one can offer me any proof. When you talk to the experts and you talk to the

archaeologists at the museum and they all say the same thing. They say, you know, there is no evidence to suggest that these giants ever existed. And yet it's difficult to ignore what these people are seeing. You know, they're digging up bones. You know, they seem very confident in what they've seen and yet there's no, they're not showing me any evidence.

With Jamie still on the hunt for some tangible evidence, Marcello said that he'd discovered a large tooth in one of the so-called "Giant's Tombs" a few years ago, which he'd then taken to a respected local dentist for analysis. The dentist was convinced it was human, but of a size he'd never encountered before. In fact, a size that he believed was impossible. "Okay, a few years ago, I

I had a fragment of bone and teeth. And I analyzed this fragment and I saw a very big teeth. The measure was larger than normal human measure of teeth. And this teeth was also inside a fragment of bone. I saw three molars, very, very big molars.

And you were certain they were human? Not animal? No, no, no, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely human? Human molar. Very large human molar. Obviously you've seen many teeth before. Have you ever seen one this size? No, no, no, no, never. I never, I never seen teeth of this size before this day. So how big is a normal human molar?

Human molars normally are 20 or 25 mm. And this measure is from the point of the cuspid until the apex of the tooth. And how big was this tooth? 30 mm, one, and the second 35 mm. And how unusual is it to find a tooth that size? No, it's not usual. It's unusual.

Absolutely, it's not usual. And how tall would a person be to have a tooth that size? OK, I can't be sure, but I think it's only my supposition. We can talk about two metres and a half, but it's only my supposition because I never see a situation like that.

And here, the dentist's story becomes a little weird. Dr. Manka said that he handed the tooth back to Marcello, who then sent it off for further analysis at the university in Cagliari to try and get some accurate dating on its age. But after waiting months for an answer, the university contacted him to say that they'd lost the tooth.

What could have been real evidence of these giants had gone, like so many discoveries before it. I believe this is a clear and blatant case of a cover-up. They never explained what happened, and they never returned my phone calls. Why is it, though,

that people are telling me that they've handed over bones to the authorities and then they disappear. They believe there's some kind of cover-up. What do you say to that? No, no, there is no reason to cover something like this. I am an archaeologist. If I found something that is extraordinary, it's not normal archaeology. For me, it's very important. It's giants or other things.

What would you say to someone

The people that I have met, what would you say to them? If they were here right now, what would you say to them? I normally say, "Well, let me see this. Where you find this? What you see? Where you have found this?" But they're telling me that they have done that. They've tried to do this. They've taken their bones. To who? To who?

Frankly, I find it hard to trust the archaeologists and the academics at the universities, as I have heard them claim too many times that giants have never walked the earth. They never existed. On the other hand, a large number of eyewitnesses claim the exact opposite,

with the specific details and descriptions that make me believe their versions more. They have found the actual locations of these giant tombs. The giants of Sardinia is a complex mystery. On one hand, the idea of actual living, breathing giants walking on Earth seemed fantastical, and yet the dozens of locals that Jamie met seem convinced that they've seen real giant skeletons.

Not only this, but Professor Sana believes that his small bronze tablets actually prove their existence and where they came from thousands of years ago. And yet, on the other hand, the professional archaeologists say that it's just a case of wishful thinking mixed up with fakes and misidentified human and animal remains. There were ancient cultures on this island, they say, but they were regular-sized people. Jamie had been on the island for nearly a week.

And despite meeting lots of people who described what they'd found, he still hadn't seen any giant remains for himself. So when Marcello agreed to take him to a new underground site that he'd discovered, Jamie was hopeful that his bone drought would end.

The site was an old observation tower from the Nuragic period, roughly 3,000 years ago, that had since collapsed into the ground. So it was just possible that it might yet give up something interesting, but there were no guarantees. OK, Jamie, we're about to enter this very narrow underground tunnel. It is very dark and deep with water at the bottom.

We're going inside. In this tunnel, it's been already there. It's suggested to enter starting with the feet. So I slide down into a tunnel feet first. Right, OK. This is where our adventure begins. Where we start the adventure. Do we have to climb all the way down into there? Yes. Yes. OK. Can I go in? Yes. Difficulty? I think it's me.

I don't think I'm going to be able to get in. I think I'm too big. Local researcher and caver Marcello Polastri has been investigating the mystery of the giants for years. He believes that remains have been dug up on the island and then covered up by the authorities. He's brought Jamie to a newly discovered tomb, which he hopes will contain the remains of a giant.

But with Jamie standing at 6'4", he's having difficulty just getting into the entrance tunnel, let alone the chambers beneath, and eventually takes a wise decision to leave it to the experts. I think if I manage to get in there, I'm not going to be able to get out. Okay, you go and I'll meet you outside. If there were any giant skeletons lurking down there, then Marcello and his team would be more than happy to ferret them out.

Entering this underground site unleashes a wave of emotion. It's a place that was created by the ancient Nuragic people. There's a dolmen perched on a hill, under which is a small entrance which you crawl into. This becomes an underground tunnel, where we found some large stones that almost fell on us. All we needed to do was knock the walls,

and it could totally collapse on our heads. The most astonishing thing was seeing these huge rocks weighing several tonnes at least 10 metres underground.

What kind of supernatural or superhuman forces were able to create such an environment underground, and why? These are the questions that lead me inside these underground sites and to face the risks involved. Marcello and his crew plowed ahead underground without Jamie, heading deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, hoping they'd find some remains.

And eventually they did, but it was just the bones of a small animal. So how was it? It was amazing. Was it good? Yeah, sorry for being late, but it was fantastic. We also found some bones.

I don't know if they were humans, but they were very small. No, we left them because we could be in trouble. So what was it like down inside? It's like a tunnel and then you need to squeeze yourself into a tunnel and then there is another room. But we found also some writing. Really? So we think it's something like, you know, satanic stuff. Torches. Candles everywhere.

Animal bones and evidence of a cult gathering were not exactly what Jamie had been hoping for. But as Marcello explained, his research is really just a case of trial and error and lots of persistence. He says the giant skeletons are down there, dotted all over the island, and he won't stop until he's dug one up. The scriptures speak of a race called the Nephilim, giants who came from another planet to Earth.

Here in Sardinia, we potentially have physical evidence for the first time of these giants, yet it's suppressed. Why? Well, it's because there is no way at this point in time that you can rewrite the theory of evolution. You can't possibly introduce the notion of interventionism and life was seeded on this planet, even though the scriptures say it, by extraterrestrials. That has to be suppressed. It begs the question, in my mind,

Who do you think our gods were? For most of us, giants are creatures of myth and legend. So the idea that their skeletons were being dug up on the island of Sardinia is quite a far-fetched concept. The stories of the locals that Jamie met are fascinating, but in every case, they failed to produce anything tangible to support their claims. Skulls had been crushed, bones had been confiscated, and teeth had simply vanished into thin air.

The theories of Professor Sana held considerably more water, but in the end, it's a good story with extraordinary possibilities to rewrite our ancient history, but there's just no proof of any giants… yet.