As always, I was stoked for last night's episode and I hoped they were heading west to California, Nevada - somewhere out here where giants were extensive.
Jim's neighbor Al Pieropan told him about a place called Nan Madol in Micronesia, a town rising out of the ocean that is mysterious and people in the local area speak of ancient giants and a curse that strikes anyone that disturbs their spirits. In 1907, the governor went there and dug out a giant burial ground and died the next day. He warned Jim that it may be dangerous to dig up skeletons of giants, a "giant hunter curse."
Jim admitted that the curse is not going to stop them from looking for evidence.
They decided to go to Catalina Island in California. The history has been talked about as the island of wizards and shaman and supernatural things, black magic and more. The channel islands in California had an exceptional history according to the Natives, of these magical giants.
Terje Dahl, a Norwegian giant hunter, thinks there is a connection between ancient giants of South Pacific and those in the channel islands in California. He agreed to join the brothers.
Hugh Newman and Jim spoke with Gil Zamora, a forensic artist, who will help them get a face for the legend. They started to put together the bits and pieces of giants to come up with a sketch. (See my post on the face of the ancient giants based on the otamid slope-headed skull of impressive size found in the Humboldt sink by university researchers).
Ironically, the researcher Terja ended up in the hospital in California. He had clots in his lungs. He produced a huge tooth. It was replica of the Denisova tooth found in the cave in Siberia. It was 50% bigger than an average Homo sapiens adult molar. They were an ancient species of hominid they came to call Denisovans. He wondered if perhaps they were more advanced, able to cross the sea. I think there is something to support this as we know the giants were in the South Pacific and Australia and those are the areas that show Denisovan DNA.
Hugh (author/researcher) went in to talk to a Dental expert, Shara Bailey, who said, after seeing so many thousands of teeth, she has never seen double rows of teeth. (I find that unusual because today people upon occasion have them. I have seen photos of a person today who has a perfect double row of teeth in his mouth). Asians/Native Americans have higher incidence of additional teeth, she expressed. She mentioned that they would need to have a very big jaw to have an extra set of teeth all around. Giants are reported to have enormous jaws that can fit around a human's jaw.
Jim and Bill went to Catalina Island and arrived to the museum. Ralph Glidden long ago had excavated and found lots of giant bones on the island. They were wondering if perhaps the island's giants were the predecessors of the ones spread out over America. Glidden had made many headline discoveries of amazing finds. They examined his journals. The thigh bone of one man measured 28 inches. This would be perhaps an 8-foot tall person. Some of the photos impress them with the size of the skulls.
They find a lack of documentation in Glidden's work. Lots of photos, but no numbering, mapping or measuring where they were dug up. As time went on, Glidden was just rushing through and not keeping great records. Glidden had a museum and sensationalized much of it with a roadside tourist attraction type thing with no archaelogic value. In 1924, his backers withdrew funding and needing money, he opened a macabre museum that was creepy and decorated with remains. He began to get bones from around the world and pass them off as his own finds. It was a disrespectful sick display that polluted any potentially ground-breaking finds.
The brothers climbed into a helicopter for an aerial view. They took photographs to look for clues. They saw old excavation sites in the photos and they realize that Glidden had dug up huge areas.
Bill and Jim went to Tucson to meet Carlos Hays, son of Paxson Hays, a giant hunter in Sonora Mexico. He had been honored at the White House, then written out of history, shamed and died in obscurity. They ask Carlos about how his father went from respected to embarrassed. His father believed he found giant mummies. A well known scientist of the time butted heads to accept the discovery, and so he was shamed. He treated the Yaqui Indians with respect and they shared their secrets there with him. Carlos's father had taken an honest journey to learn and understand, not threatened by what he might find and only curious with wonder.
Integrity and thoughtfulness - two words Jim used about how he wanted to approach the subject. He has the appropriate reverence for this potential find and its importance to man's history.
They went back east to Gil Zamora to see an example of what he thinks the giants' skulls might have looked like. Once he drew the skull, Gil began to sketch in the face over it (this is how I did my rendition on the post - link above). They assumed the giants had black straight hair, but actually if it were Denisovan - it would be curly black hair and yet the reports from Catalina Island giants were that they had blond hair mostly. Nevada ones were reported as red-haired. The sketch was very nice.
The guys at the end of the show found out they had the permit to dig at the Goshan Tunnel along with the University of Massachusetts team.
Once again, another fantastic episode. I hope they come across the paper that was removed from online after I reported it on my blog (link here). It listed all the measurements of these otamid skulls reported as "archaic, carnivorous, with interparietal bones, massive jaws, and sloped foreheads" that were found around the world. In that report, they had compared a skull found in the Humboldt sink with these other ones with these unusual sized measurements and strange features. I have copies of the report in my possession, as do other researchers. They were put out by a university and scanned and placed online, but curiously taken down after I published my posting on this blog.
I am, once again, utterly alert and on the edge of my seat for every episode. This series is perhaps my favorite ever made in this genre and that says a lot because I'm a nerd and it's generally hard to impress me with intelligent TV.
The History Channel, you have a winner! And, thank you oh so much for having the balls to air a show like this and support it because I believe, in the scheme of things, giants cannot stay hidden and when this truth comes to light, those who helped facilitate it will be remembered in the history of discovery.
