Petrified Giant Human?

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the story of petrified giants in the Grand Canyon went public. Samuel Hubbard visited the Grand Canyon with a guide named William Hull. Hull had told Hubbard of a petrified giant he saw while prospecting in Grand Canyon. An Indian guide led Hull and a partner to a ledge where a petrified giant lay that measured between eighteen and twenty feet in length. Hull took Hubbard to the spot in 1895, and on October 2, 1896, the Los Angeles Times ran article about the affair. I have reprinted the article below:

Does anybody believe that there ever has been a race of giants in the world? Does anybody believe that a race of gigantic) men who were from twelve to twenty feet high ever lived in these United States of America? And yet the proof that such a race of people did live in this country is to be found in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, in Northern Arizona. This proof consists of, first:

Footprints in the red sandstone. Footprints that appear to have been made by the moccasined feet of gigantic men. Men whose tracks measured twenty inches in length, and who stepped five feet at a stride.

The second proof is that there is the petrified body of such a man likewise in the red sandstone of the Grand Canon district. This body was that of a living, breathing man, but after death the flesh was replaced by lime or silica, held in solution in the water. There is ample evidence that nature was able to perform this feat, as the petrifying process is being carried on in the canyon to this day.

The third fact is that there is, and was, a strong and almost universal tradition among the ancient people of Mexico and Peru that such a race of giants lived in their country.

Perhaps it is almost too much to call this proof, but it is at least corroborative testimony.

Now, aside from the interest which attaches to these tracks on account of their size, there is a geological puzzle involved which will set scientific men to thinking. The tracks of men and animals in the red sandstone of the carboniferous period is more than a geological puzzle; it is a geological crime…

… Now, nature is the greatest author and bookkeeper that the world has ever seen. She has kept an exact record of all the transactions and the writing is done on tablets of stone. Therefore, we may consider each of these periods as a volume in the great library of nature. Each volume has Its own story to tell, yet each story blends into the one which follows it with a harmony and a precision which is nothing short of divine.

I. Archean time: (1) Azoic age; (2) Eozoic age.

II. Paleozoic: (1) Invertebrates or Silurian; (2) age of fishes or Devonian; (3) age of coal plants or carboniferous.

III. Mesozoic: (1) The age of reptiles.

IV. Cenozoic: (1) Tertiary, or age of mammals; (2) quaternary, or age of man.

“Dana” makes an estimate of the length of time these periods endured, as follows:

Paleozoic time, 36,000,000 years; Mesozoic time, 9,000,000 years; Cenozoic time, 3,000,000 years.

Volume 1 deals with Archean time. With the (beginning of things and chaos. This book was written so long ago that the writing Is obscure and difficult to read. The rocks of this period are mainly granite. In them are found no fossils, which would indicate that there was no life on earth at that time.

Vol. II deals with the age of invertebrates, or the Silurian period.

Vol. Ill, the age of fishes, or the Devonian period.

Vol. IV, the age of coal plants, or the carboniferous period.

Vol. V, the age of reptiles.

Vol. VI, the tertiary period, or age of mammals.

Vol. VII, the quaternary period, or age of man.

The rocks of these periods succeeding the Archean, are mainly sedimentary in character, and are filled with fossils indicative of the life of the period.

Now, in the lower end of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, which has only the first volumes, we find footprints that appear to be those of men and animals which geologists say should appear in the sixth and seventh volumes.

That is what footprints In the red sandstone of the carboniferous period means.

Now, if scientific men investigate these footprints, they will have to find some means by which the tracks can be made to fit geology, otherwise, geology is all wrong, which is unthinkable.

This interesting matter which has resulted in the two discoveries mentioned was drawn to my attention In the following way.

Last June I visited the Grand Canyon as a tourist. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad to Flagstaff, thence by stage seventy miles to the “Hance” trail, on the brink of the gorge. There I met Mr. Guide, who was acting as guide into the canyon, and who was a pioneer of Northern Arizona. He told me the following story, and, with apologies for my credulity, I believe him.

Three years ago he and a companion named Jim Lavelle, had been prospecting In this part of the country. They found a ledge which they thought was valuable, and had started out of the cafion with samples of the ore, expecting to return in a few days. One of the Indians was with them. Mr. Guide speaks the Indian language fluently, and the Indians have a great admiration for him. The Indian said: “Have you ever seen the Big Indian up there,” volunteering to show it. They followed him up a foot trail which led “through a crevice in the red wall, thence onto a bench-like formation above, but still in the midst of red sandstone.” They came to a place where a projecting rock formed a shelter over a sloping table-like slab of stone which was covert! with a white incrustation of lime. Outstretched on this slab was the body of a gigantic man. The body was entirely nude, and laid face downward. They estimated his height to be 18 or 20 feet. The left arm was at full length while the right arm was doubled under the head. The left leg was perfect, but the foot was Jammed into a crack in the slab. The right leg was broken off just below the knee and the broken part was missing. They looked at it ten or fifteen minutes and then continued their journey, intending to return and make a more complete Investigation. Plans changed, and they failed to return.

Mr. Guide told the story to several people, but they either disbelieved him or discouraged him, so it happened that he had never been back there and had never tried to do anything with his discovery.

He also told me that reliable Indians had described to him tracks of both men and animals in the solid rock not far from this body and In the same formation. These he had never seen, but he had no doubt of their existence.

This was startling information, but it had been, in a measure, prepared for it. In the first place, it had always seemed reasonable to me that the prehistoric primeval hunting savage should have been of large stature. Geology tells us that there was a period in the history of the world called the Tertiary or Mammalian Age, that was peculiarly favorable to animal life. It Is the age of the mammoth, the great cave bear, the cave lion, the wooly rhinoceros, the primeval ox, the giant Irish elk, the gigantic sloths and other familiar animals, that were far larger than than now. Was man to be left entirely out amid all this list of giants?

Los Angeles Times. October 2, 1896.

This story is covered in the fourth book of my Detours Into the Paranormal series.

For an in-depth look at the subject of giants, check out my book Giants: Men of Renown.


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