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    An alternative way to explore and explain the mysteries of our world. "Published since 1985, online since 2001."

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Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, November 2014





Those persistent Giant Skeleton stories
by: Brent Raynes



This is our 200th issue of Alternate Perceptions magazine! It’s been an absolutely awesome journey, full of great fun, adventure, and many fond memories, and it doesn’t appear as though we’re about to run out-of-steam any time soon as there are numerous and exciting new adventures, journeys, and discoveries in the works still yet, both long range and short range, that are in the early developmental stages. So dear friends please don’t wander too far from our pages just yet!

It seems almost like it was just yesterday that I began my own quest looking for answers to life’s greatest mysteries, like the question of life after dead, UFOs and otherworldly encounters, how some people seem to possess unexplained psychic powers, etc. I was extremely fortunate in 1985 to have become acquainted with Greg Little, who shared so many of my own interests in the unexplained. We have worked on a variety of projects together. This magazine is certainly, to my mind, one of the most notable achievements of our friendship and an accomplishment that I am extremely proud of. It has been an absolute honor to have worked with such a consummate and conscientious forward thinking professional who dares to tackle the great questions and mysteries of life that the majority will carelessly shy away from. I sincerely hope that we are given many more years yet to come to further collaborate and continue on with our research and investigations seeking answers to questions that mainstream media too often refuses to genuinely acknowledge.



Those persistent Giant Skeleton stories

After traveling out-of-state with Greg and Lora Little twice this year, viewing in the neighborhood of 50 Indian Mounds and earthworks in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio, visiting some sites that reportedly had had proof of excavations (even with Smithsonian Institute involvement) of very tall human skeletons 7 feet and taller (particularly around the Kanawha Valley region of West Virginia), I was pretty excited and very interested to learn more. In Greg Little’s book Path of Souls: The Native American Death Journey, released just a few months ago, he described how in 1540 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his men were going through Alabama when they met the great Chief Tuscaloosa (Tuscaloosa meaning Black Warrior) and his 18-year-old son. Several times in the chronicles of that expedition both were referred to as “giants,” the son consistently described as around 7.5 feet in height and Chief Tuscaloosa described by four chroniclers as well over 7 feet tall, and as the tallest Indian that they had encountered.

Chief Tuscaloosa ruled a place called Mabila (no one today knows for sure exactly where it was) and the surrounding region, somewhere perhaps between Moundville and Birmingham it seems.

Greg had mentioned in his book the magnificent Mississippian era mound complex near Tuscaloosa, called Moundville, where one can visit an impressive mound complex with 22 surviving mounds (one which is 60 feet tall) and a museum with incredible artifacts, many bearing symbols that were very significant to the fascinating and complex spiritual and afterlife beliefs and rituals of these Native Americans. On Saturday, September 20th, my wife Joan and I decided to take Moundville off of our “kick the bucket list” of places to go and drove what was for us roughly 182 miles down there.

I had googled weeks earlier and found an internet site that described excavations at Moundville led by a Dr. Walter Jones of the University of Alabama (for whom the Moundville Museum is named after) and read how very tall skeletons had been unearthed there. Thanks to a Peggy Skelton at The Tuscaloosa News, I was able to obtain an intriguing copy of the front page account of this discovery. Here is an excerpt from the February 25, 1930 edition of that newspaper, of an article written by one Jerome Schweitzer, of the University News Bureau:

Some 400 skeletons, the sizes of which vary from unborn infants to male adults, buried between 1,000 and 5,000 years ago have been uncovered at the Indian mounds at Moundville by the Alabama Museum of Natural History. From his offices at the University of Alabama, Director Walter B. Jones of the Museum announced that one skeleton measured seven feet, six inches in height.

……All skeletons unearthed with bones strong enough to be preserved, have been brought to the Museum. Most of the large skeletons brought out were found in the vicinity of Mound “G,” Dr. Jones said. The majority of these measured six feet or more in height.

All of the graves from which the skeletons were taken were earthen except one which was a very fine type of stone burial box which is so prominent in Tennessee and Kentucky.

….One of the most remarkable burials encountered was that of a very prominent member of a tribe, possibly the chief of a tribe which resided around Mound “E”. This burial carried a stone disc under the skull, two square pots, and three miscellaneous pots. This pottery is superb ware and beautiful in design. In addition, the skeleton wore many shell beads at the neck, the wrist, and there were seven beads on the right ankle and eleven on the left.

From a blog on Facebook called Stone Builders, Mound Builders and the Giants of Ancient America, it is reported that in a 1976 edition of The Tuscaloosa News, at the end of Dr. Jones’s career, his work was again mentioned, stating: “Jones early discoveries uncovered facts about Indian settlements of West Alabama before recorded history, a race which he says were giant people from 6 and a half to 7 feet tall. It was Jones and Jones alone who realized the significance of the discoveries at first.”

I am attempting to learn what specific issue that article appeared in as well so that I can locate a copy of it too. A blogger from the Facebook site described how he had called and spoken with the curator at Moundville. “Essentially the tone of the conversation was a condescending arrogance such as son, only fools believe in mermaids,” the blogger wrote. The curator allegedly told the blogger that some years back someone from Princeton had visited and measured the collection (all 400 skeletal remains?) and there were no “giants” (as the curator himself supposedly called them) among them.

I had purposely selected this particular Saturday in September to visit Moundville as we got to attend a one hour lecture by Dr. F. Kent Reilly of the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University. He's mentioned in our friend and colleague Greg Little's book Path of Souls as one of the key people who spearheaded a renewed effort to understand what the ancient symbols of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex were about. As a boy, Dr. Reilly and his family used to go there Sundays and have picnics. Back then when asked what it all meant, he was told "We can never know." When he grew up he became an archaeologist, studied the Mesoamerican civilizations (focusing mainly on Olmec and Classic Maya) and became determined to try and translate the ancient iconic images of the Southern Ceremonial Complex as well. He told us he had long ago learned that "multiple heads are better than one" and so in the early 1990s he started up conferences for people to get together and pool their knowledge and findings. As a significant contribution of this work involved symbols relating to the belief in an afterlife journey along the "Path of Souls" (Milky Way) the Cygnus star constellation loomed significant as a final destination. I showed him Greg's book and one written several years ago by Greg's good British friend Andrew Collins entitled The Cygnus Mystery (2006), which begins with the author’s visit to the 12,000-year-old megalithic complex Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. As Dr. Reilly had never read that book, and because they had both independently found Cygnus and the "Path of Souls" important in their studies, I gave him an extra copy of Andrew's book.

Archaeological evidence indicates Moundville became an important spiritual center and that neighboring and outlying villages would make pilgrimages to this site and take sacred knowledge back to their people. Dr. Reilly remarked during his talk that he wouldn't be surprised if we were to discover that Moundville was where the dead were brought to begin their sacred afterlife journeys to embark upon the "Path of Souls".

Alternative minded truth seekers are mourning the passing of two prominent researchers who had gained global recognition for their thought-provoking, controversial concepts, ideas, and evidence. They were American author Dolores Cannon, age 83, who passed away on October 19th, and Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoti, age 71, who passed away on October 17th, at a hospital in Tokyo. Dr. Emoto is best known for his experiments showing how human consciousness could affect water, documenting those alleged effects with microscopic photographic techniques. He wrote several best sellers on the subject, including The Hidden Messages in Water, The Shape of Love, and The True Power of Water. He had been in China on a speaking tour when he became ill, developed pneumonia, and had to be airlifted back to Japan.

Dolores Cannon was both an author and a hypnotherapist. She had 17 books published, with such titles as The Three Waves of Volunteers and The New Earth and The Convoluted Universe. She covered such subjects as past lives, extraterrestrial visitations and alien abductions, and energy healing. For over 40 years she practiced regressive hypnosis, claiming that she was able to take her clients to the deepest level one can experience. “We are able to contact what I call the greatest force there is, and it’s a source of all knowledge,” she was quoted stating.



Moundville museum



The famous Willoughby Disk on display at Moundville. Cool to get to see it in person. Part of a sacred bundle used by an ancient portal opening priest? Hand and eye symbols of Orion portals? Do the two skulls represent cosmic twins? Also contains "bi-lobed arrow" symbol which our Native friend Dove led us a few years ago to location north of Hamilton with rock carvings of such symbols, plus three dots in a row said to have been Orion's belt, etc. These disks it seems could also have been used as portable altars.



Dr. F. Kent Reilly



Winged serpents on vessels found at Moundville. Believed to represent the constellation of Scorpius, its eye the star Antares. Ruler of the underworld. Archaeologist Dr. Kent Reilly compared the symbols on these clay vessels to the labels on our medicine bottles. They describe the contents that were used in specific sacred ceremonies.


Thursday, March 28, 2024