117: Forbidden Archaeology: Lost Giants of America | The Smithsonian's Biggest Secret
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In 1886, mining engineer John T. Reed was told the Paiute legend about a race of giants. Giants who, after a long and bloody war, were defeated by the natives near Lovelock Cave, Nevada. Reed's belief in this legend stirred great interest in the secrets held within Lovelock Cave.

Official excavations were undertaken in both 1912 and 1924 by the University of California, with reports telling of thousands of artifacts being recovered. Of these artifacts, the most puzzling were human remains. Well, they were almost human.

Skeletons measuring between 8 and 10 feet tall were said to be found during the dig. Skeletons belonging to who are now known as the "Lovelock Giants." Legends of people of enormous size are told across a myriad of cultures. And despite what we've been told by mainstream science, there is evidence to suggest they really existed.

The remains of giants have been found all over the US and all over the world. So why aren't these amazing finds on display in any museum? Or taught in any classes? Or mentioned in any history books? Well, it's because the existence of giants, for some reason, has been covered up.

To say giants don't turn up in history books isn't exactly accurate. Many ancient cultures refer to giants. In Indian mythology or the Vedas, there was a time called the Satya Yuga or the Golden Age when all of humanity existed in complete harmony. Humans during this time were believed to be 32 feet tall. In the Old Testament, there are beings called the Nephilim and they're mentioned in Genesis. - There were giants in the earth in those days

And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. One interpretation of this suggests that the sons of God were giant fallen angels who seduced human women and their offspring were the Nephilim. How does a giant seduce a human woman?

- Oh, right. - Giants show up quite a bit in the Book of Enoch, one of the religious texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Nephilim were said to have been men of the old times who existed before the Great Flood. Ancient Indian texts say the same thing. The Book of Samuel also introduces us to one of the most famous giants in history. - Andre? - Goliath.

Goliath was a Philistine warrior who challenged the Israelites to send out a champion for single combat. David, armed only with a slingshot and faith in God, brought the giant down with a single stone. Goliath was said to be between 7 and 11 feet tall and possibly descended from a people known as the Anakites or the Anakim. And the Anakim were descended from the Nephilim. But references to giants in history go back even further.

The ancient Sumerians had an equivalent to the Anakim, a race of gods who are sometimes described as giants. Anunnaki! Yep, the Anunnaki. And if you don't know who the Anunnaki are, here's a hint. Look in the mirror.

According to interpretations of ancient Sumerian and Babylonian texts, the Anunnaki were a race of extraterrestrial beings from the planet Nibiru. Now Nibiru is not some distant planet on the other side of the galaxy, but is right here in our own solar system.

It passes near Earth every 3600 years. And this extra planet theory was dismissed as pseudoscience for many years. But it's now widely believed that there is an extra planet or some kind of large object in the far reaches of our solar system. In fact, NASA has been searching for this object for years, though they call it Planet 9 or Planet X. They can't give Zechariah Sitchin any credit, eh? They won't admit that, but I bet it's a big part of it.

In 2015, Caltech researchers thought they found evidence for this planet. And in 2016, they said they were almost sure the planet was out there. And then in 2017, researchers agreed that data and computer models prove with almost 100% certainty a large secret dark planet is lurking in the distant solar system.

And they expect this to be confirmed within the next few years. And perhaps then we'll finally learn if this could actually be planet Nibiru, home of the Anunnaki.

Now, according to the tablets, when the atmosphere on Nibiru started to deteriorate, the Anunnaki came to Earth for resources, specifically water and especially gold. And after their slaves rebelled, the Anunnaki needed a new workforce. And they performed genetic experiments on different Earth animals to try to create a new slave race. Eventually, they were successful.

By splicing DNA from the Anunnaki with cavemen called Homo erectus, a new species emerged, Homo sapiens. In Sumerian and Babylonian texts, this new species was called the first men or Adamu. And the Hebrews translated this to be men of Adam. The first men were bred to work for the Anunnaki. The Hebrew word avod means work for. Avod also means worship.

And so humans worshipped their gods, the Anunnaki, who were giants compared to puny humans. Though it was forbidden, some Anunnaki bred with humans, and their offspring became known as the Nephilim. Now obviously the story of the Anunnaki needs its own episode, so if you'd like to see that, yes please, if you'd like to see that, let me know. The tablets say the next time Nibiru passed near the inner solar system, it caused severe electromagnetic disturbances,

Dark spots appeared on the sun and waves of color streaked the sky. This is referring to extreme aurora borealis and australis, indicating a weakening of the Earth's magnetic field. With less protection from the sun's energy, the ice caps melted and a great flood swept across the entire planet. To escape the devastation, the Anunnaki boarded skyships with their gold and returned to Nibiru.

But on Earth, great cities were destroyed and sunk beneath the waves. When the waters finally receded, only a small number of humans were left to rebuild civilization. And this creation myth is told in almost every culture on Earth. And recently, we're starting to discover evidence that a great flood did indeed occur. But what about evidence of giants? Well, there is evidence, and some of that evidence has been found right here in our own backyard.

Many Native American tribes tell of the long forgotten existence of a race of humans that were much taller and stronger and sometimes more cruel than ordinary men. The Choctaw tribe has a legend about the Nahuilo, a race of giants who ate human flesh. The Choctaw killed these giants whenever they could. Eventually those giants were driven west.

The Paiute settled in the Nevada desert thousands of years ago and passed down the story of a race of red-haired giants called the Sitica. The Sitica literally means "Tuli eaters," and Tuli is a strong type of reed found in swamps. Legend says the giants built rafts out of Tuli and arrived in Nevada thousands of years ago. But Tuli wasn't the only thing that the giants ate. Like the Nihulo, Sitica also ate humans.

The Siddiqa waged war on the Paiute and all other neighboring tribes. The human tribes fought bravely, but the giants were too strong. The Siddiqa would often eat the people captured in battle. So after years of conflict, the tribes united and that turned the tide of war. And in the final battle, the red-haired giants were driven into a cave. The tribes stuffed the cave entrance with sticks and brush and set it ablaze. The last remaining Siddiqa either suffocated or burned alive.

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of Chief Winnemucca, was the first to write down and print the story of the Sitika. But she said this wasn't a legend, it was history. She even wore red hair taken from a giant woven into some of her clothes.

When mining engineer John T. Reed heard the story in 1886, he asked to be taken to the cave, the final resting place of the CityCat giants. Reed wasn't able to finance the excavation of the cave at that time, but when valuable bat guano was discovered, people started digging. Bat guano? Yep, it was used to make gunpowder and explosives. No, I mean, what is bat guano? Oh, guano is the, uh...

Wastes of bats and birds. You can make explosives out of sh*t. You can. Okay, okay, okay. Do me a favor. When you clean my bowl, uh, can you save it for me? Fourth of July's coming up. I'm gonna make fireworks. I'm not saving your sh- I'm not- I'm not- I'm not saving that for fireworks. Fine. Then to celebrate, I'll just light my farts. You better not. Why do you hate your country?

Lovelock Cave was excavated in 1912 and in 1924. And in 1929, the findings were published and they were surprising. Well, they weren't surprising to the Paiute. At the entrance to the cave, there was evidence of extreme scorching. At some point, a fire burned very hot and for a very long time. On one of the cave walls, an enormous handprint was found.

Inside the cave, over 10,000 artifacts were recovered, including many human bones. Some of the bones showed that marrow had been removed, a sign of possible cannibalism.

A sandal was found that would have fit someone who wore a size 29 shoe and would have been over 8 feet tall. And clothing was found that was too big to fit a normal sized human. During the first dig, it was reported that the mummified remains of two giants were found, a female almost 7 feet tall and a male almost 9 feet tall, and both had red hair.

In addition to the initial findings, even more evidence exists in Lovelock Cave and its surrounding area. According to a 1931 article published in a Nevada newspaper, two giant skeletons had been found buried in a dry lake bed close to Lovelock Cave, Nevada. Were these giant gingers too? Yup. They also had red hair. But giants weren't just found in the Nevada desert.

They were found from coast to coast. Apparently long before native tribes arrived, America was the land of the giants. In Peebles, Ohio, the Great Serpent Mound is a 1,370 foot long prehistoric effigy mound.

Nobody knows why it was built, but due to a nearby meteor impact crater, the area is full of gravitational and magnetic anomalies. Some researchers like Richard Hamilton believe the location for Serpent Mound was chosen specifically because of these anomalies. And for many years, there have been stories of freak weather patterns, UFO sightings, and strange lights in the area. And also found near Serpent Mound, the remains of giants.

In 1872, a report appeared in the book, "Historical Collections of Noble County, Ohio." Someone had stumbled across enormous skeletons. - The remains of three skeletons were found whose size would indicate they measured in life at least eight feet in height.

The remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front as well as in back of the mouth and in both upper and lower jaws. Upon exposure to the atmosphere, the skeletons crumbled back to Mother Earth.

In 1891, anthropologist Frederick Ward Putnam found large skeletons in the same area that measured seven feet or taller with skulls twice as thick as a human's. In 1894, a local farmer found unusual graves. The find was even covered by the New York Times. Farmer Warren Cowan recently discovered several ancient graves a mile from the famous Serpent Mound, where Professor Putnam of Harvard made interesting discoveries.

Upon opening one of the graves, a skeleton of upwards of six feet was brought to light. In another grave was the skeleton of a man equally large. It seems that the region was populated by a fairly intelligent people, and that the serpent mound was an object of worship.

Ross Hamilton writes about giant skeletons found in Miamisburg Mound, about 70 miles from Serpent Mound. The body of a man more gigantic than any ever recorded in human history has been found in the Miami Valley in Ohio. The skeleton, it is calculated, must have belonged to a man 8 feet 1 and a half inches in height. It was found within a half mile of Miamisburg, in a location which contains many relics of the mound builders.

Edward Gebhardt and Edward Kaufman discovered it while they were working in a gravel pit. Professor Thomas Wilson, curator of prehistoric anthropology, Smithsonian Institute, says of the find: "The authenticity of this skull is beyond any doubt. Its antiquity is unquestionably great, though it is impossible to have a good guess as to its age. To my own personal knowledge, several such crania were discovered in the Hopewell group of mounds in Ohio."

Hamilton said the bones were put on display at a local museum, but they're no longer anywhere to be found.

In just a short trip down the Ohio River Valley, another extraordinary skeleton was found. In 1959, Dr. Donald Dragoo, curator for the Carnegie Museum, unearthed a seven-foot, two-inch skeleton during the excavation of the Cresap Mound in West Virginia. In 1868, a report surfaced that quarry workers with the Sauk Rapids Water Power Company unearthed the remains of a 10-foot-tall skeleton along the shores of the Mississippi River.

A few days later, the bones were nowhere to be found, rumored to have been whisked east on a late night train and sold to the circus. In 1897, the Worthington Advance describes the Smithsonian Institution's work on the Eastern Mounds in Iowa. The paper quoted the director of the Bureau of Ethnology, John Wesley Powell.

It is a matter of official record that in digging through a mound in Iowa, the scientists found the skeleton of a giant who, judging from actual measurement, must have stood seven feet six inches tall when alive. The bones crumbled to dust when exposed to the air. In Steelville, Missouri, there's a documented case from the Steelville Ledger, June 11th, 1933. An ancient Ozark giant dug up near Steelville.

A boy looking for arrowheads turned up the complete skeleton of an eight foot giant. The grizzly find was brought to Dr. R.C. Parker here and stretched out to its enormous length in a hallway of his office, where it has since remained the most startling exhibit Steelville has ever had on public view. - Some believe these Midwest giants traveled west and occupied all of North America, that perhaps they made it all the way to the Pacific.

San Diego, California has reports of enormous remains found all over the area. A giant skeleton found in 1895 measured eight foot four inches. The skeleton was carefully inspected and measured by Professor Thomas Wilson and other scientists.

Wilson was an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution. Also in Southern California on Catalina Island, amateur archaeologist Ralph Glidden found a total of 3,781 skeletons on the Channel Islands between 1919 and 1930. In 1833, Mexican soldiers were digging a pit for a powder magazine at Lompoc Rancho, California.

They hacked their way through a layer of gravel and found a 12-foot long sarcophagus. The skeleton of a giant man was found inside. The grave was surrounded by carved shells, huge stone axes, two spears, and thin sheets of quartz. And the sheets of quartz were covered with symbols. And he had another interesting feature, a double row of teeth, both upper and lower.

Over the past 200 years, more than 1,000 accounts of seven-foot and taller skeletons have been found across North America. Newspaper accounts, town and county histories, letters, scientific journals, diaries, photos, and Smithsonian ethnology reports have carefully documented this. The Smithsonian Institution is mentioned dozens of times as the recipient of enormous skeletons from across the entire United States.

And if that's true, then where are the bones?

From New York to California and almost every state in between, thousands of relics and over a thousand giant skeletons have been discovered and documented. They've been found in mounds, caves, burial chambers, stone crypts, and even on ancient battlefields. Many of the skeletons have strange physiology, like elongated skulls and double rows of teeth. In dozens of cases, the bones were turned over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. So, we're

Where are they? The Smithsonian was never really suspected of wrongdoing, but then something strange happened in 1950. In 1892, ancient wooden coffins were discovered in a place called Crump's Cave in Alabama. The coffins, along with some other artifacts, were sent to the Smithsonian. This is all well documented. So in 1950, researcher Frederick J. Pohl wrote the Smithsonian to inquire about them. It was a curious find because Native Americans didn't use coffins or caskets.

Poe received a reply from the Smithsonian. - We have not been able to find the specimens in our collections, though records show that they were received.

The matter was pursued again in 1992 by another researcher, David Barron. He was told the coffins were wooden troughs. Troughs? Yes, troughs are long rectangular containers for feeding cattle, horses, or pigs. But before the Europeans arrived, North America didn't have any cattle, horses, or pigs. And even if they did, why would a trough have a lid on it? What, did this guy mention this to the Smithsonian people? He did.

He was told, yeah, well, even if he wanted to see the coffins or troughs or whatever they were, he couldn't because they were in a warehouse that was contaminated with asbestos and was closed for cleanup. Closed for how long? Ten years. Ten years to clean up asbestos? Yep.

"Oof, they must have been Union." Yeah, it starts to smell like a cover-up. The suppression of Native American archaeological evidence allegedly began in 1881. Up until that point, the Smithsonian was under the direction of John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous for exploring the Grand Canyon. Powell had spent a lot of time with the Winnebago Indians, and he found them to be thoughtful and intelligent.

So Powell and the Smithsonian actually promoted the idea that Native Americans, who were at the time being exterminated in the Indian Wars, were descended from advanced civilizations who communicated with and traded with cultures all over the country and possibly all over the world. This widespread dispersion of culture is called diffusionism, which the Smithsonian supported.

But then Powell appointed Cyrus Thomas as the director of the Eastern Mound Division at the Smithsonian. And then things got political. Thomas wasn't a fan of Native Americans. He thought of them as nothing more than howling savages. Thomas thought it was impossible for savages from one side of the Mississippi to visit savages on the other side. And to think that people as primitive as Native Americans could sail over an ocean was just ridiculous.

This is called isolationism. Isolationism says that civilizations develop independently from each other and have very little contact with other civilizations, especially across oceans or lakes. The debates in the Smithsonian raged, and Cyrus Thomas eventually won the battle of isolationism versus diffusionism.

Soon, the Smithsonian took an official stance that any archaeological evidence supporting diffusionism was fraudulent. It was believed that contact between the civilizations of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were rare, and contact between the Mississippian cultures and the Mayas, Toltecs, or Aztecs in Mexico or Central America, well, that was absurd. So the history books were written. Native Americans were a primitive and sometimes savage people, and that was that.

But not so fast.

When those ancient mounds and pyramids in the Midwest were studied, it was shown that the Mississippi River valleys was at one time home to an ancient and sophisticated culture. At the time, the culture's capital city, Cahokia, was bigger than almost any city in Europe. When the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma were excavated between 1933 and 1935, a man over seven feet tall was discovered. He was in full armor, and buried next to him was a pot of thousands of pearls and other artifacts.

This was one of the largest treasures ever discovered at that point in time. We know that the man in armor was found and the Smithsonian was contacted. So where is he? Many human remains were found in graves next to artifacts, but the remains were discarded and we're told that most of the rare and priceless objects disintegrated before scholars could reach the site. I can feel you that priceless objects vanish before anyone gets there. When the excavation was finished,

Dynamite was used to destroy the burial chamber, and any remaining artifacts that were considered valuable were sold off.

The Acombaro artifacts were discovered in Mexico in 1994 and have been the center of controversy. Over 33,000 unusual artifacts, including many ceramic and stone figurines, were found. Initial laboratory testing suggests the artifacts were about 6,500 years old, but here's where things get controversial. Some figurines depict dinosaurs living alongside humans, and there's a famous carving of a human warrior riding a triceratops.

Diverse ethnic groups are represented. Blacks, whites, and Asians are depicted. But those races should have been unknown in the Americas 6,500 years ago. And there were strange creatures like mermaids, human-animal hybrids, even a Bigfoot.

also found were teeth from an extinct Ice Age horse and the skeleton of a mammoth. Neither of these animals should have been there. Archaeologists Charles C. DePeso and John H. Tierney examined the collection and authenticated the find. Carlos Perea, the director of archaeology for the Acombaro Zone, also authenticated it. But the Smithsonian and other authorities dismissed the findings as fraudulent.

Despite laboratories dating the objects to 4500 BC, the Smithsonian declared the artifacts 30 years old and said the whole find was a hoax. John Tierney, who later collaborated with Professor Charles Hapgood, said the Smithsonian Institution and other authorities had conducted a campaign of disinformation against the discoveries. If you remember from the Adam and Eve episode we did, Charles Hapgood was dismissed as a pseudoscientist because he claimed the continents drift over millions of years. Oops.

Yeah. So John Tierney filed a Freedom of Information request and asked for all the Acombaro files from the Smithsonian. Well, turns out the files are missing and all the Acombaro objects in the Smithsonian's possession have been put into storage and may not be viewed by the public. Until when? Didn't say. Tierney went on to write a book called Acombaro, Archaeology's Astounding Scandal. But good luck trying to find it.

The phrase "a skeleton in the closet" refers to a secret that, if exposed, would cause shame, guilt, or even a scandal. Now, we all have a skeleton or two in the closet. For us, that's just a metaphor. But for the Smithsonian, they're actual skeletons. Giants in America. A government conspiracy. A Smithsonian cover-up. It's a fascinating story.

But is it true? Well, let's unravel it. Ohio has been the epicenter for giant skeletons, especially in the 19th century. When early discoveries made the news, the stories were a national sensation. Now, this amount of attention also brings out the hoaxers and scammers. Hey, you want to buy a hecklefish NFT? I do not. And by the way, if you bought an NFT relating to the Y-Files or hecklefish, you got scammed. But

But not by me. No refunds! In 1882, enormous skeletons were discovered in a lake bed near Cincinnati. The Columbus dispatch ran with the story. The problem was, it was all a hoax. The alleged discoverer was charging admission to visit his property and view the skeleton. Now,

Now, it may or may not have been a real skeleton, but either way, it was about 5'8", so not a giant. Well, maybe the guy who found it was really short. Maybe, but the story was so exciting that newspapers around the world ran it without fact-checking. Journalists running stories without checking the facts.

No, it can't be. As more stories about giants popped up in the news, it was hard to separate fact from fiction because the newspapers ran every story. Hey, you want the truth or you want to sell papers, am I right? Right. Nothing ever changes. That's true. Ralph Glidden was the archaeologist who found over 3000 giant skeletons in 800 graves on Catalina Island.

That turned out to be a huge hoax. He did find one skeleton and took a picture of himself standing near it. He showed the picture to a friend who said, "That looks like a giant." Which it does, but only because the skeleton is closer to the camera. Clinton ran with the idea to make some money, but it was all a scam. And since the early days of the internet, photos have been floating around of people excavating sites with giant bones.

Some of the pictures are great, and I used a lot of them today. But most of the pictures are from a Photoshop contest held in 2002. In fact, science says that giant humans could not exist. Yes, there are human beings who grow very tall, but that's due to medical conditions and genetic disorders. Gigantism often happens when someone has a tumor on their pituitary gland. But this is a serious medical problem, and people who suffer from gigantism often die very young due to the strain on their hearts and other organs.

Then there's Marfan syndrome, a genetic condition that can cause limbs to be much longer in relation to the rest of the body. It's believed that Abraham Lincoln might have had Marfan syndrome. At six foot four, he was much taller than most of the men of his time. - He also died young. - Oof.

"What? Still too soon?" But the reason humans can't grow to be giants is the square-cube law. This states that as the size of any object grows, its volume grows faster than its surface area. If a giant is 60 feet tall, or about 10 times the size of someone 6 feet tall, the giant's body volume would have to be 100 times the volume of the 6-foot man. A cubic inch of bone can support 19,000 pounds. That's a lot.

But at 60 feet tall, bone would need to support well over 550,000 pounds.

Human bones would shatter and crumble under this weight. Yeah, but who says giants are human? Now that's a fair point. There are discoveries of giants where it was reported that the bones of the body and the skull were much thicker than humans. So is the Smithsonian covering this up? Well, debunkers say no. The story about John Wesley Powell nominating Cyrus Thomas to the Smithsonian first appears in an article written by David Childress in 1993.

The article caught fire and has been in circulation ever since. Now, that doesn't mean Childress is wrong, but I do get suspicious when stories about the 19th century don't emerge until the late 20th century. So have the authorities been suppressing knowledge that the Americas were once inhabited by advanced civilizations, civilizations who made contact with cultures around the world? Well, to get this answer, we're going to need a

A sweet potato. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, do I have sea monkeys in my ears or did you just say sweet potato? - For over a hundred years, the Smithsonian and mainstream archeology has supported isolationism. That the cultures that emerged in North America did not have contact with Central America or South America, and definitely did not contact cultures across the oceans. It's absurd to even think it.

But the Smithsonian has a problem: the sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas. But an ancient sweet potato was found in the Cook Islands, which are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The potato was carbon dated to the year 1000.

That would mean that 500 years before Columbus, a Native American tribe traveled across the Pacific and landed in Polynesia and brought sweet potatoes with them. Or Polynesians traveled to the Americas and back. The counter argument is that the sweet potato fell off a boat near Central America and floated to Polynesia, over 5,000 miles away. - It's one lucky potato.

Linguists have found that the word for sweet potato in early Polynesian languages is kumala. In Native American dialects spoken in Ecuador, the word is kumara. Now it could all be a coincidence, but we're not done yet. Even more compelling is DNA analysis of Polynesian chickens.

In 2007, chicken bones were found at an excavation site in Chile. The DNA of the bones matched chickens from the Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga and were carbon dated to between 1304 and 1425, before the Spanish arrived in the New World.

In 2019, South American chickens were studied and found to have an unknown genetic component. It turned out that component was from chickens found on Easter Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The study was so astounding that research was done on human DNA.

And in 2020, the study showed that some Polynesian people had DNA inherited from people who lived in Colombia about 800 years ago. Specifically, Polynesians share DNA with the Zinu tribe who lived in Colombia on the Caribbean side, not even the Pacific Ocean side.

It's too much to cover in this episode, but there's evidence of Chinese contact with the New World in 1200 BC, or Indian contact in 2000 BC, and of Arab contact in the 9th century. There are even old maps from the Arabs and Turks, like the Piri Reis map, that show North and South America, a thousand years before Columbus was born. And there's much more. Some mummies have been found with traces of coca and nicotine.

A re-examination of the mummy of Ramses II in the 1970s revealed the presence of fragments of tobacco leaves in his abdomen.

Coca and tobacco are native to the Americas. Mainstream science says an archaeologist handling the mummy must have spilled his pipe. That's what they say. Remember, we did an episode on Egyptian artifacts allegedly discovered in the Grand Canyon in 1909. The Smithsonian denies this and claims the whole story is a hoax. But for some reason, the part of the Grand Canyon where the discovery was made is off limits. You can't even fly over it.

If you do wander into the area, within a few minutes, unmarked planes and helicopters appear in an area where flying is not allowed.

I'll link to the episode below which goes into detail. You'll even see the planes and helicopters I'm talking about. Once again, those artifacts were sent to the Smithsonian and nobody knows what happened. In 1990, a law was passed: the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This law says that any federal agency in possession of Native American cultural items, including human remains or sacred objects, will be returned to the tribes upon request.

Great. The Smithsonian is a federal agency. So can we get all the skeletons from Ohio and have a look? Nope.

United States Code, Title 25, Chapter 32, Section 3001, Subsections 4 and 8 state: Subsection 4: Federal agency means any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States. Such term does not include the Smithsonian Institution. Subsection 8: Museum means any institution or state or local government agency, including any institution of higher learning, that receives federal funds and has possession of, or control over, Native American cultural items.

Such term does not include the Smithsonian Institution or any other federal agency. The law requiring the government to return skeletons to the tribes? Well, the Smithsonian is exempt. So if history books need to be rewritten, don't look to the Smithsonian for help. And don't demand answers either. Mainstream science, and especially the media, have a playbook. It's easy to recognize once you look for it. The four stages of suppression are criticize, marginalize, attack, and censor. Now here's an example. Okay.

I don't claim to be an archaeologist or a scientist. When Graham Hancock released his documentary series called Ancient Apocalypse, it was a huge hit. It explores the theory that ancient advanced cultures existed thousands of years ago, but were wiped out in the great flood of the Younger Dryas. Now, you could agree with this theory or disagree with it. Either way is fine with me. But wherever you stand, we can all agree that it's an interesting theory worthy of discussion, right? Well, wrong.

The Guardian reviewed the series in an article titled "Ancient Apocalypse is the Most Dangerous Show on Netflix." Now, there's stage one, criticize. Not only should we not discuss alternate theories, it's actually dangerous to discuss them. But people like us don't care about criticism. We don't care what the media thinks. So they have to escalate to stage two, marginalize. That same article has a spicy subtitle which read, "A show with a truly preposterous theory is one of the streaming giant's biggest hits.

and it seems to exist solely for conspiracy theorists. So if you believe in or even have an interest in this preposterous subject, you're marginalized as a conspiracy theorist. The same article insinuates that people who are curious about civilizations before the flood are the same as flat earthers. Eh, it still might be flat. Or 9/11 truthers. Inside job. Not now.

Being called a conspiracy theorist used to be a major insult, but we've heard it so much that we're not affected by it anymore. I take it as a compliment. I know.

So they escalate to stage three: attack. MSN reviewed the documentary in an article with this headline: "Graham Hancock Series Promotes Racist Conspiracy Theories." And there it is. ABC ran with it. "Ancient Apocalypse Series Uses Racist Ideologies." Now, I watched and enjoyed the documentaries. I enjoyed discussing alternate history and life before the Younger Dryas flood.

I'm not racist, are you? I don't care what color the people were before the flood. I just want to know about them. And I would guess that you are the same. But calling someone a racist without evidence is very much in style now. But because that word is thrown around so much, that attack is also losing its teeth. So you criticized it didn't work. You marginalized it didn't work, attacked it

it didn't work. That leaves stage four, which does work: censorship. It's right there in that headline from The Guardian where the author poses the question: Why has this been allowed? What does he mean allowed? Who does he want allowing or disallowing free speech? Netflix? The government? I suspect I know the answer. Now, I don't

I don't agree with all of Graham Hancock's assertions laid out in the documentary, but all of them are worthy of discussion. Mainstream media and science disagrees. These discussions are preposterous, dangerous, and racist, somehow. So censor it. For a hundred years, Egyptologists proudly claimed ancient Egypt as the first major civilization, with a minor shout out to the Sumerians who were there a thousand years earlier. Any culture older than that was nonsense, and discussion was censored.

But then Gobekli Tepe was discovered in Turkey and is found to be 5,000 years older than Sumeria. - Whoopsie. - Yeah, that was embarrassing. Then Monkuklu Tarla was discovered, also in Turkey. That culture dates back to over 12,000 years ago. That's a period of time called the Pleistocene. Now we were taught that this was the time of the cavemen.

But in Bunkuk Lutarla, they understood agriculture and animal husbandry. They could cut stone and they engaged in city planning. A few years ago, a sewer system was discovered. These weren't cavemen. They lived in houses built around a central religious center. A Netflix documentary discussing different theories isn't dangerous.

But articles by mainstream television writers who get their facts from mainstream scientists? Those articles are dangerous. They're dangerous because they suppress debate, which in turn suppresses discovery. I'm so glad the archaeologists who found Bonkuklu didn't read internet news. Otherwise, those racist conspiracy theorists might never have found what is, so far, the oldest culture on Earth.

A culture that emerged, by the way, right after the great flood of the Younger Dryas. As more time passes, more evidence emerges to support theories about alternate history. If giants walk the Earth, sooner or later, that too will be discovered. But mainstream media will do everything it can to prevent that news from getting out.

If The Guardian, NBC, ABC, USA Today, CNN, and all the others continue to be wrong over and over again, maybe we have to start asking the question about those articles. Should they be allowed? Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. And Al.

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Or a heck of a plushie talking doll, fish talking fish doll. Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about the teeth. They feel real. They are. Really? Where do they come from? They're harvested. Harvested from where? You don't want to know. Fair enough. Well, that's going to do it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. ♪♪♪

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