Author Denver Michaels

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 ...

Most are familiar with the story of David and Goliath, found in the Old Testament, but most do not know Goliath had a counterpart of sorts in Mesoamerica named Tzilacatzin. In this post I will discuss the two stories . David and Goliath, one of the first Bible stories taught to young children in Sunday school, is a timeless tale that has permeated our culture. It is spoken of metaphorically—how many motivational speeches have referred to the hero David rising to the challenge and confronting the evil giant ?    Let’s take a look at the David and Goliath story as recounted in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 17:   4 And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.   5 And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.   6 And he had greaves of brass upon...

In 1937, a site along Potomac Creek in Stafford County, Virginia yielded a skull “which far exceeds in brain capacity any skull previously recorded.” The Washington Post reported:  A primitive Algonquin Indian who hunted and fished along the Potomac River 300 years ago and was probably a friend of the princess Pocahontas, probably was the brainiest man the world has ever seen. The skull of this man, which far exceeds in brain capacity any skull previously recorded, was found in Stafford County, Va., by presiding judge W. J. Graham, of the United States Count of Customs and Patent Appeals, a prominent amateur archaeologist. He announced his discovery yesterday. Judge Graham found the skull about two weeks ago. It was in several pieces, and he sent it, as he has his other archaeological finds, to the Smithsonian Institution. There it was assembled and officials were astounded to find that it exceeds the brain capacity of any skull on record. Judge Graham said when he saw the...

The following is an excerpt from my book Giants: Men of Renown , published by Adventures Unlimited Press in which I discuss the giants in the Book of Moses:

In 1885, the American Antiquarian ran an article discussing a mound which had been opened in Pennsylvania. The mound yielded several interesting finds, chief among them the large skeleton of a Pennsylvania giant who wore a copper crown: " A large Indian mound near the town of Gasterville, Pa., has recently been opened and examined by a committee of scientists sent out from the Smithsonian Institute. At some depth from the surface a kind of vault was found in which was discovered the skeleton of a giant measuring seven feet two inches. His hair was course and jet-black, and hung to the waist, the brow being ornamented with a copper crown. The skeleton was remarkably well preserved. Near it were also found the bodies of several children of various sizes, the remains being covered with beads made of bone of some kind. Upon removing these, the bodies were seen to be enclosed in a network of straw or reeds, and beneath this was a covering of the skin of some animal. On the stones whi...

On December 17, 1891, Nature ran an interesting piece about the discovery of an enormous skeleton clad in copper armor in a mound in Ohio. The following article describes the Ohio giant: "According to the “World's Fair Notes,” sent to us from Chicago, the party which, under the direction of Mr. Putnam, has been making excavations in the mounds of Ohio, made an important discovery on November 14. While at work on a mound 500 feet long, 200 feet wide, and 28 feet high, the excavators found near the centre of the mound, at a depth of 14 feet, the massive skeleton of a man incased in copper armour. The head was covered by an oval-shaped copper cap; the jaws had copper mouldings; the arms were dressed in copper, while copper plates covered the chest and stomach, and on each side of the head, on protruding sticks, were wooden antlers ornamented with copper. The mouth was stuffed with genuine pearls of immense size, but much decayed. Around the neck was a necklace of bears’ teeth, s...

George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) spent decades recording the histories, legends, and cultural practices of the Plains Indians. According to a Pawnee narrative recounted to Grinnell, the first people to inhabit the earth were giants. These mighty men of old were so powerful that they hunted buffalo on foot. The giant buffalo hunters ran fast enough to catch buffalo and were strong enough to kill them with only clubs and flint knives. So powerful were these giants, and of such enormous stature, that they carried slain buffalo upon their shoulders. These giant buffalo hunters of the Plains were also arrogant and haughty, and they refused to honor their creator, Tirawa. The giants believed themselves to be invincible; as time went on, they grew in their arrogance and their behavior became completely unacceptable to their creator.  Like so many other deities spanning a myriad of unrelated cultures, Tirawa also decided to rid the earth of the arrogant giant buffalo hunters. He turned th...

The pages of the Bible speak of entire races of giants. Among them, are the Anakims, the Rephaims, the Emims, the Zamzummims, and the Amorites. Who were these large-statured folks? The Reverend Finis Jennings Dake (1902–1987), who penned the Dake Annotated Reference Bible , the first widely-distributed study bible from a Pentecostal perspective, said this about giants in his work: The Anakims were a great and tall people (Deut. 1:28; Deut. 2:10-11,21; Deut. 9:2; Joshua 11:21-22; Joshua 14:12-14). Anak himself was a giant (Numbers 13:33). If all Anakims were as big, we can be assured other giants were also. The land of Ammon was “a land of giants,” for “giants dwelt therein in old time” (Deut. 2:19-20). The Emims were also “great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims” (Deut. 2:10-11). The same was said of the Zamzummims who formerly inhabited the land of Ammon (Deut. 2:19-21). Rephaims Dake said the following concerning the Rephaims: A “valley of the giants” is mentioned in Joshua 15:8...

Christopher Columbus gets the credit for discovering the New World, but it was another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) that proved the Americas were a large and separate land mass—not the outer fringes of Asia. The Americas, as they came to be known, were named after Amerigo Vespucci. During Vespucci’s second voyage, he landed on an island that would become known as the Isla de los Gigantes, or Island of the Giants . Vespucci recorded the following in his letters: …We found that this other island was inhabited by very tall people . We landed to see whether there was any fresh water, and not thinking it was inhabited, as we had not seen anyone, we came upon very large footprints in the sand, as we were walking along the beach. We judged that if the other measurements were in proportion to those of their feet, they must be very tall. Going in search, we came into a road which led inland. There were nine of us. Judging that there could not be many inhabitants, as the island was sma...

I read a fascinating newspaper article that appeared in the San Francisco Call in their March 8, 1908, issue about giants in Hawaii. H. Coffin Berry wrote the piece which was titled, “When Hawaii was Peopled by Giants .” The article read like an adventure book, comic book, or an old dime store novel, and it reminded me a lot of the old pulp science fiction magazines Fate Magazine and Amazing Stories . To summarize the important aspects of the article, it began by speaking of catacombs in Europe, but pointed out that unbeknown to most people, Hawaii is home to a series of catacombs that are much older than those found in Rome. The piece also gave an account of an expedition into the Hawaiian catacombs. According to Berry, the Hawaiian catacombs, which weave their way through the volcanic rock that forms the islands, represent a “sealed storehouse of vast information awaiting scientific inspection and research.” Berry’s article discussed giants in Hawaii—large human remains were disco...

An intriguing report of the discovery of giant mummies in Death Valley appeared in newspapers across the nation on August 5, 1947. The article titled "Trace of Giants Found in Desert" is reprinted below: TRACE OF GIANTS FOUND IN DESERT LOS ANGELES, Aug 4. (AP)-- A retired Ohio doctor has discovered relics of an ancient civilization, whose men were 8 or 9 feet tall in the Colorado desert near the Arizona-Nevada-California line, an associate said today. Howard E. Hill. of Los Angeles speaking before the Transportation Club, disclosed that several well-preserved mummies were taken yesterday from caverns in an area roughly 180 miles square, extending through much of southern Nevada from Death Valley, Calif. across the Colorado River into Arizona. Hill said the discoverer is Dr. F. Bruce Russell, retired Cincinnati physician, who stumbled on the first of several tunnels in 1931, soon after coming West and deciding to try mining for his health. MUMMIES FOUND Not until this year, ...

In today’s blog post, I thought I would share this account from 1880 of nine-foot giants in Ohio. Of equal interest to the giant discoveries is a sandstone tablet found among the burials with “two lines of hieroglyphs” inscribed upon it. I have written at length in the past of excavators finding strange tablets inside of mounds containing giant bones. The Marion Daily Star told the story of the tablet and enormous skeletal remains found in a mound in Ohio : MARION DAILY STAR , JULY 14, 1880 REMAINS OF NINE-FOOT GIANTS IN OHIO A correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer, writing about the remains of a giant race found in Muskingum County, Ohio, says: The mound in which these remarkable discoveries were made was about sixty-four feet long and thirty-five feet wide top measurement and gently sloped down to the hill where it was situated. A number of stumps of trees were found on the slope standing in two rows, and on the top of the mound were an oak and a hickory stump, all of...

Some call Florida Man the world’s worst superhero. And judging by the kooky headlines I've seen over the years, rightfully so. But there was a time when Florida Man at least had the physical makings of a superhero. In days gone by, there were giant Florida men. These fellows were tall and robust and stood over seven feet tall. If the stories are true, there may have been giant Florida men as tall as twelve feet. Newspaper stories from the 1800s and early 1900s told the story of giant skeletons in Florida. A piece in the Palm Beach Post from October 2, 1934, had this to say: The continual wash of the Atlantic Ocean cutting through a narrow coastal island about one mile south of the St Lucie Inlet has exposed the bones of men evidently laid to rest 100 years ago says the Fort Pierce News Tribune . Skeletons of nine individuals were discovered some in the shallow waters of the inlet and others beneath the nearby sand. All of the men were unusually tall and must have been sturdy gia...

Numbers 13:33 says: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."  When the Spanish explorers landed on the shores of the New World, they hoped to find immeasurable riches and vast amounts of gold. What they didn’t expect, however, was to meet real-life “Sons of Anak.” Hernando de Soto (circa 1500–1542) is best known for being the first European to cross the Mississippi River. In fact, de Soto died of a fever in a village on the banks of the Mississippi. While marching through present-day Alabama, de Soto and his men met a true “Son of Anak."  According to the account of the Spanish chronicler Garcilasso de la Vega, de Soto tarried in the town of Talisse for a week and a half during which time a powerful chief, Tuscaloosa, sent an ambassador to meet with him. The ambassador was Tuscaloosa’s own son—about 18 years of age—who much taller than any of the Spaniards or I...

The historian Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616) was the son of an Inca princess and a conquistador. He quoted the following story about ancient giants in his work  Royal Commentaries of the Incas : Before leaving this region, we should mention a very remarkable story which the natives have received as a tradition handed down by their ancestors for many centuries. It refers to some giants who they say arrived in their country from over the sea and landed at the point now called Santa Elena, a name given to it because it was first seen by Spaniards on this saint's day. As Pedro de Cieza de León is the Spanish historian who speaks of these giants at greatest length, having received his version in the very province which the giants visited, it seemed best I should follow his account word for word, for although Padre J. Acosta and the accountant general Agustín de Zárate say the same, their version is very brief. Pedro de Cieza's fuller account in his Ch. Iii is as follows: “As th...

Aztec mythology makes it clear that  giants  inhabited the earth in a bygone era.  During the time of the First Sun, the Jaguar Sun, giants inhabited the land but were destroyed by the god Tezcatlipoca when he sent jaguars down to devour them.    Long before Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of the New World, before Spanish chroniclers recorded the feats of the giant Otomi warrior  Tzilacatzin, those mighty men of old— men of renown —were active in Central America in the ancient past. The giants were evil and were hated by both the gods and mankind. Terrible wars were waged against them but the people were never quite able to completely free themselves from the ruthless monsters . The gods became tired of the conflict and unleashed a mighty flood on both the giants and  the people of the earth.     Of course,  it  should be  easy to see the parallels with the account of the Great Flood in the book of Genesis. Here, too, a flood was sent to wipe out both humanity an...