This story was first published on March 30, 2015
Outline
Circulating ‘news’ report claims that archaeologists have unearthed a giant human skeleton in Bulgaria. The report features a picture depicting the skeleton with the archaeologists.
Brief Analysis
The claims in the report are nonsense. No such giant skeleton has been found. The image is fake and was created by combining a photograph of archaeologists excavating the remains of a dinosaur with a photograph depicting a very old, but normal sized human skeleton. This is just one among a number of similar ‘giant skeleton’ hoaxes that have circulated for many years.
Example
ANOTHER GIANT SKELETON DISCOVERED IN BULGARIA?!
A team of archaeologists have uncovered the skeletal remains of a giant in the Bulgarian city of Varna.
Detailed Analysis
According to a report that is being passed around via various ‘alternative news’ websites, social media posts, and the blogosphere, a giant human skeleton has been unearthed at Varna in Bulgaria. The report claims that the giant human is estimated to have lived and died during the 5th century AD.
The report features an image of the giant skeleton with a row of archaeologists crouched down beside the bones.
But, not surprisingly, the claims in the report are utter nonsense. No such giant human skeleton has been found, in Bulgaria or anywhere else.
The story is a work of fiction and the image is fake. The picture was created by combining two unrelated images to make it appear that the skeleton was gigantic.
The part of the image depicting the row of archaeologists has been extracted from a photograph of a dinosaur excavation and added into a photograph of a very old, but normal sized human skeleton.
Of course, if such a giant skeleton had really been discovered, it would have been extensively covered by the mainstream news media as well as archaeology and other scientific publications.
In fact, this silly hoax is just one among several giant skeleton hoaxes that have circulated in various forms for years on end. The other hoaxes also feature fake giant skeleton images.
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
