Giant Skeleton

Legendary skeleton Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size. This region of the Indian desert is called the Empty Quarter. The exploration team also found tablets with inscriptions that stated that our Gods of Indian mythologicalyore, Brahma, had created people of phenomenal size the like of which He has not created since. They were very tall, big, and very powerful, such that they could put their arms around a tree trunk and uproot it. They were created to bring order among us since we were always fighting with each other. One of he sons of Bhima of the Pandava brothers is also thought of to have been carrying these genes. Later these people, who were given all the power turned against all our Gods and transgressed beyond all boundaries set. As a result they were destroyed by God Shiva. The Geo Exploration team believes these to be the remains of those people. Govt of India has secured the whole area and no one is, allowed to enter except the NatGeo personnel.

Giant Skeleton Hoax Giant Skeleton Hoax Category: OsteologyPosted on: December 15, 2007 12:52 PM, by afarensis, FCD This is equal parts funny (that people were taken in by it) and sad (because it doesn't say much about scientific literacy). The hoax revolves around a picture of a giant skeleton. The picture was part of a photo manipulation contest but rapidly took on a life of its own. Here is the picture: According to the person who created the photo: 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 whiteshirted observer peering down from the wooden platform.

What happened next is that a number of media outlets and internet sites reported the find as real. People from various religious backgrounds around the world believed it because it confirmed religious myths about giants in the past. As the National Geographic article puts it: 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. Because worm eating fungi and tool using chimps aren't fantastic enough... Aerial Views Since the bones were to be removed from the pit that Saturday and Sunday, a cherry picker was present to aid in documenting their positions before removal. Here are a couple of views from the overhead bucket of the cherry picker. This overview of the pit shows the catwalk and dams. The skeleton itself is mainly in the upper left quadrant of the image, with one tusk behind a dam below and to the left of the main skeleton. You can get some idea of the wet conditions; the green hose at the right center is perhaps 3 inches in diameter and is constantly pumping water out of the pit. Click on the image for a high-

resolution version (973x875, about 1.2MB). Finally, a detailed view of the skeleton itself. This find is interesting because of the completeness (at least 90% at last report), preservation state, and articulation of the skeleton. Articulation means that many of the bones are still in their original positions relative to each other. At the top left, the pelvis is visible. At the bottom center of the image, several vertebrae are still articulated, as are several just to the right of top center. An array of ribs is visible between these two groups. At almost the exact center of the image, the lower jaw is visible, with most teeth intact. The skull, which was in good condition, has already been removed from the pit. To the right of the jaw, among the ribs, a hole in the mud is visible; this is actually a spring, spewing water into the pit continously. Click on the image for a high-resolution version (1258x1032,

about 1.4MB). At the lower right is an intact tusk behind a plywood dam and under a protective coating of mud. A major challenge is to allow this tusk to dry without having it shatter into fragments. In fact, the whole skeleton was periodically re-wetted with a garden hose to keep it from drying in an uncontrolled fashion.

Solving the mystery of the Giant Skeleton" Sanal Edamaruku

News appeared recently in a section of the media in India, Bangladesh and many other countries that a giant skeleton of enormous dimensions was excavated in some unknown desert. There was also a photograph of the skeleton with two investigators standing nearby. The skeleton's size can be judged from the height of the person standing near its skull. If calculated proportionately, the skeleton would be of a human having 60 to 80 feet height. The first report appeared in the internet, telling that the skeleton was found somewhere in the deserts of western India. The Indian government had the area cordoned off by the Indian army and nobody was allowed to visit the site except a special National Geographic excavation team. For some unknown reason, all information about the discovery was kept secret. The report also mentioned about a stone tablet found along with the skeleton with ancient carvings in Sanskrit language on it. The inscription was deciphered and it revealed the secret of the skeleton. "In ancient times there lived giants who were called Rakshasas. They challenged divine orders and were eliminated for that." The Indian mythology speaks about giants namely Rakshasas, who reigned over the forests. They ruled a country with the name Lanka and challenged the authority of the gods. In the Hindu epic Ramayana, Vishnu, the chief of the trio of supreme Hindu gods, incarnated in a royal family and killed the king of the Rakshasas. The report of the excavation of a skeleton of a Rakshasa was taken by some people as welcome proof for the reality of the Hindu mythological story. Without verifying the facts, the internet posting was further forwarded, spread widely and was taken very seriously by a large section of people. A new version of the story appeared on 22 April 2004 in the Bangladesh newspaper The Nation. While reproducing the picture, a report by one Saalim Alvi from Riyadh told about a discovery in the south east of Saudi Arabia. In search of natural gas, a Saudi Aramco exploration team found a giant human skeleton in the desert. In the new version of the story, there is also a stone tablet, but the inscriptions are in Arabic language. They reveal that the skeleton is of a man of the ancient tribe Aad. The Aads were the descendants of the Quranic prophet Nooh (Noah in biblical mythology). They have been mighty giants, who were able to pull out big trees with one hand. The Aads were in charge of controlling the people of ancient times. But they challenged Allah's orders and were wiped out by him. The place where they lived is known as Rab-ul-Khaale, the

empty place. The area where the skeleton had been discovered was overtaken by Saudi military, claimed the report in The Nation, and the picture was taken by a military helicopter. Without any verification, the story of the discovery of the giant skeleton snowballed through magazines and newspapers around the world. Genesis of the picture The paranormal investigation center at the headquarters of Rationalist International made primary inquiries and found that no such discovery had been reported or confirmed by any independent source. The photo, experts suspected, could be manipulated with a photo-editing software. In fact, a close look at the picture revealed that the light falling on the catwalk and the two men in white shirts comes from a different angle and is of different intensity than the light falling on the skeleton. The long shadow in front of the skull does not match with other shadows in the photo. An extremely enlarged version gave further proof that the picture was coined together from different elements. It seemed to be an authentic photo of an excavation with a superimposed human skeleton. The investigation could have ended here. But we found more. With patience and verification of vast possibilities, the original excavation photo was traced in the internet:

This photo was taken on 16 September 2000 at an excavation site outside Hyde Park, New York. It is part of the documentation of a sensational excavation under the Paleontological Research Institution and the Department of Geological Sciences at Cornell University. What the team of more than 60 scientists, students and volunteers under paleontologist Prof. John Chiment discovered was, however, not the skeleton of a giant human being, but the skeleton of a mastodon, an extinct predecessor of the elephant. Actually, the find included one of the most complete fossils of a mastodon and possibly a less-complete mammoth. The animals lived

between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago. More information at [http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/outreach/mastodon/aerial-views.html] There is an interesting detail: At the lower right of the photo is an intact tusk behind a plywood dam and under a protective coating of mud. A major challenge, explains the excavation report, is to allow this tusk to dry without having it shatter into fragments. This mastodon tusk is still visible in the manipulated photo of the giant human excavation! The last station in the history of the picture is the website "Worth1000", which presents a wide range of altered pictures, some artistic, some humorous. The picture that was spread world wide as the Giant Skeleton of Rakshasa of Indian mythology or Aad of Islamic mythology was simply an artistic creation of "IronKite" and was submitted in a competition in the web site Worth1000.com. The original of the altered picture done by "IronKite" is available at http://www.worth1000.com/view.asp?image=18978