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Jan 20, 2019 · A collection of photographs purportedly showing the remains of giant humanoids, dubbed the "Canaan" or "Nephilim" skeletons, have been making the internet round since as far back as...
Apr 1, 2024 · An unearthed image authentically shows a photo of a "Nephilim giant" under the government's watch. Rating: Fake. About this rating. In late March 2024, TikTok user @thefactstriggers posted a...
A Facebook post claims to show the existence of biblical giants through 10 images. The post, shared by an Australian user, is captioned “our past GIANTS ON earth” and accompanied by a gallery of photos including skeletons at various archaeological sites, reproductions of Egyptian iconography and pictures of extremely tall people.
- Overview
- Perpetuating the Myth
- Arabian Giant
- The Debunkers
- How the Image Was Made
- Wanting to Believe
The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures.
The hoax began with a doctored photo and later found a receptive online audience—thanks perhaps to the image's unintended religious connotations.
A digitally altered photograph created in 2002 shows a reclining giant surrounded by a wooden platform—with a shovel-wielding archaeologist thrown in for scale.
By 2004 the "discovery" was being blogged and emailed all over the world—"Giant Skeleton Unearthed!"—and it's been enjoying a revival in 2007.
The photo fakery might be obvious to most people. But the tall tale refuses to lie down even five years later, if a continuing flow of emails to National Geographic News are any indication. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
The messages come from around the globe—Portugal, India, El Salvador, Malaysia, Africa, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya. But they all ask the same question: Is it true?
Helping to fuel the story's recent resurgence are a smattering of media outlets that have reported the find as fact.
An often cited March 2007 article in India's Hindu Voice monthly, for example, claimed that a National Geographic Society team, in collaboration with the Indian Army, had dug up a giant human skeleton in India.
"Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size," the report read.
The story went on to say the discovery was made by a "National Geographic Team (India Division) with support from the Indian Army since the area comes under jurisdiction of the Army."
The account added that the team also found tablets with inscriptions that suggest the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that are mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic poem from about 200 B.C.
"They were very tall, big and very powerful, such that they could put their arms around a tree trunk and uproot it," the report said, repeating claims that initially appeared in 2004.
Variations of the giant photo hoax include alleged discovery of a 60- to 80-foot long (18- to 24-meter) human skeleton in Saudi Arabia. In one popular take, which likewise first surfaced in 2004, an oil-exploration team is said to have made the find.
Here the skeleton is held up as evidence of giants mentioned in Islamic, rather than Hindu, scriptures.
Web sites dedicated to debunking urban legends and "netlore" picked up on the various giant hoaxes soon after they first appeared.
California-based Snopes.com, for example, noted that the skeleton image had been lifted from Worth1000, which hosts photo-manipulation competitions.
Titled "Giants," the skeleton-and-shoveler picture had won third place in a 2002 contest called "Archaeological Anomalies 2."
The image's creator—an illustrator from Canada who goes by the screen name IronKite—told National Geographic News via email that he had had nothing to do with the subsequent hoax.
He added that he wants to remain anonymous because some forums that debated whether the giant was genuine or not "were turning their entire argument into a religious one." It was argued, for instance, that the Saudi Arabian find was entirely consistent with the teachings of the Koran.
"This was about the same time that death threats and cash bounties were being issued against cartoonists and other industry professionals for doing things like depicting the Prophet Mohammed," IronKite wrote.
IronKite started with an aerial photo of a mastodon excavation in Hyde Park, New York, in 2000. He then digitally superimposed a human skeleton over the beast's remains.
The later addition of a digging man presented the biggest technical challenge.
"If you look, he's holding a yellow-handled shovel, but there's nothing on the end," IronKite said.
"Originally, the spade end was there. But [it] looked like it was occupying the exact same space as the skeleton's temple, making the whole thing look fake.
"Now it looks like he's just holding a stick, and people don't notice. It's funny."
IronKite also altered the color of the man's clothing to create a "uniform tie-in" with the white-shirted observer peering down from the wooden platform.
David Mikkelson of Snopes.com said such hoaxes succeed when they seem to confirm something people are already inclined to believe, such as a prejudice, political viewpoint, or religious belief.
A hoax also needs to be presented "in a framework that has the appearance of credibility," he said in an email.
The "ancient giant" has both elements, according to Mikkelson.
"It appeals to both a religious and a secular vision of the world as different and more fantastic than mere science would lead us to believe," he said.
"Proof," Mikkelson added, "comes in the form of a fairly convincing image."
For anyone who may have knowingly propagated the myth, Mikkelson added, the motivation "probably wasn't any different than the motivation for engaging in a game of ringing someone's doorbell and running away—because it's an easy way to have a laugh at someone else's expense."
Sep 4, 2023 · According to Marzulli, the creature was a Nephilim, a group of people mentioned in the Genesis and Numbers books of the Old Testament who were said to be “people of unusually large size and strength” that could be found in the Middle East both before and after “The Flood” of Noah’s Ark fame.
Mar 3, 2021 · Shared as alleged proof that gigantic humans once roamed the planet, these pictures have been altered and are part of an Internet hoax that has been around for more than 15 years.
Jun 21, 2004 · 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.
