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NARRATOR:
It is less than three months
since the start of World War I,
and the front page
of The New York Times
is dominated by headlines
about the global conflict.
But on page nine,
a sensational article
documents the incredible
discoveries
recently made in South America
by Australian explorer
Captain James Besley,
which include the bones
of an eight-foot-tall man.
VIEIRA:
In 1914, Captain Besley led
an expedition in Peru
where he unearthed
a giant skeleton
with a huge, elongated skull.
He wrote about it.
He discovered it.
He reported it.
You know, what's interesting is,
in the historical record,
there's many accounts
of giant skeletons
being unearthed
in the Lake Titicaca region.
Some were enormous-- eight-,
nine-, ten-foot-tall skeletons.
Now, sometimes these are
animal bones
that at the time were,
uh, misunderstood.
But oftentimes,
they are human burials
with human artifacts,
elongated skulls,
but a lot of it seems
to be lost to history.
So it's still open-ended as to
what happened to the bones.
NARRATOR:
Is it possible
that skeletons of giants
standing as much
as ten feet tall
were discovered
near Lake Titicaca?
While the finds
were well-documented,
what happened
to these allegedly giant,
humanlike bones remains unknown.
But researchers point out
that when Spanish conquistadors
first arrived
in Peru in the 1500s,
the Native people
told them stories
of giants that once inhabited
the entire region.
TSOUKALOS:
In 1553, the Spanish
conquistador Pedro Cieza de León
wrote in his chronicles of Peru
that the Native people
told him about giants
who arrived in the area
long ago.
And according
to local traditions,
their ancestors
encountered people so tall
that an ordinary human
would only come up
to their knees.
And Pedro Cieza de León
also claimed
that some of the Spaniards
found a giant shin bone
and a giant tooth.
NEWMAN:
There are accounts
of giants existing
around the area of Lake Titicaca
in the Peru, Bolivia,
Altiplano area.
The Inca said that
there was a tradition
of these giants called Huaris
building sites like Tiahuanaco
and Puma Punku
long before the Inca or any
other cultures existed there.
We also have stories,
even at Tiahuanaco itself,
that the great
founder god Viracocha,
who emerged from Lake Titicaca,
created a race of giants
from the earth, from the mud,
and controlled them
so they would build
the megalithic sites
in the area,
like Tiahuanaco and Puma Punku,
before they were then vanquished
by a great flood.
The historical record
and the legends
seem to be telling us
about giant humanoids
existing in the past
and being associated
with megalithic building.
NARRATOR:
For ancient astronaut theorists,
the stories of giants
and alleged discoveries
of giant bones in Peru
are compelling.
But even more intriguing
is the fact
that some of history's
greatest explorers
claimed to have actually
seen giants in South America
with their own eyes.
Sanlúcar, Spain.
September 8, 1522.
After more than three years
at sea, the Victoria,
a ship launched by Portuguese
explorer Ferdinand Magellan,
sails into the harbor.
Its arrival completes the first
circumnavigation of the globe.
As recorded in the ship's log,
Magellan and his crew
faced dangerous storms,
fierce battles
and grand receptions.
But for many,
the most intriguing account
detailed an unusual encounter
near the tip of South America.
TSOUKALOS:
Ferdinand Magellan and his crew
were approaching land
near the southernmost point
of South America when,
according to the expedition's
official chronicles,
they encountered
these towering giants
who apparently stood
twice as tall as a normal human.
ANTONIO PIGAFETTA (dramatized):
We saw a giant,
who was on the shore of the sea,
quite naked, and was dancing
and leaping and singing.
He was so tall that the tallest
of us only came up to his waist.
However, he was well-built.
The captain named
this kind of people Patagon.
NEWMAN:
They witnessed
these extremely tall
human Natives of the area,
and he actually named
the area Patagonia
because it translates
as "Land of the Big Feet."
And these clearly had very
big feet, as these were giants.
VIEIRA:
According to the logs
of the Victoria,
Magellan took back two of
these giants on his voyage home
with the goal of presenting them
to the court in Spain.
But they became so sick
and died,
they had to be thrown overboard.
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