Before some days, I received some mails which claimed that a giant skeleton was found in India resembling to the description of the character of Ghadotkach in Mahabharata.

Following photos were attached.

Skeleton India 1..skeleton india 4

skeleton india 3…..skeketon india 2

If you have received this mail, this is Hoax.

Following is more explanation.

  1. A new skeleton indeed was found in India before a couple of years, but that was skeleton of a dinosaur. The link to that finding is here. Some people are creating confusion and spreading false information.
  2. Before some time, there was discovery of Homo Floresiensis , a smaller than average human species. This added a new chapter to theory of evolution and made a huge news worldwide. The news was reported in papers world-over. Several scientists rushed to the place for more research, several research papers were written, etc. Skeleton like this would be a bigger deviation to theory of evolution than the Homo Floresiensis and would be a far larger news if this were true. The news coverage would not be limited to a small newspaper.
  3. The images are clearly altered photographs. In the image where the skeleton is lying around with a bulldozer near its head, the head is clearly not in place where it should be. It is modified to fit in that square pit in picture. Also the surrounding green area in second picture is absent in first picture.
  4. In the second picture, the head looks at different place than the first one.
  5. In third picture, the guy sitting there is not somebody you can find digging in a village in remote Northeast. He looks Caucasian with a cowboy hat. Also the skeleton in this picture is lying with legs folded on a VERTICAL wall, very different from that in the first two pictures where the skeleton is lying on ground with legs streatched .

Here is another rational viewpoint. http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/20041001_en.html

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Now see the skeleton vanishing before your own eyes.

Skeleton is ..Skeleton gone 1…going skeleton going 2 …going.skeleton gone 3..gone

About half an hour on paintshop pro. Then some playing around in Irfanview for 5 mins.

I think I don’t even need Paintshop pro. I can do this in Gimp and Irfanview, both free softwares.

Different levels of sharpness or blur in different parts of image is obvious sign that the image is fake. Also abrupt color changes, mismatching shadow directions and micro level details like hand grips, immediately give away faked image.

For all those who still believe there was such a skeleton found , here is the final chapter in the story of Skeleton.

Not all of us take forwarded email as final word of God. One of such rational enthusiasts is Harikumar P. He contacted Archaeological Survey of India and asked them directly about this skeleton. He got letter from Superintendent of ASI , explicitly denying any such finding in India.

Below if the copy of the letter.
letter from archaeological survey of India

Oh, but didn’t the National Geographics Report it too?

Heck no! Here is the copy of email Harikumar forwarded to me.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: rescor@nationalgeographic.com < rescor@nationalgeographic.com>
Date: 10-Aug-2007 21:08
Subject: Re: Discovery of Gaint Skeleton in India?

Dear Harikumar P:

Thank you for contacting the National Geographic Society.

The story you have seen online is a hoax that’s been floating around over
the Internet for the past few years. Visit the urband legend websites at

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer /hoaxes/giantman.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_giant_skeleton.htm

for more information and how these photos were put together.

Best wishes,

Lisa T.

National Geographic Society

——————–

(Harikumar, Thanks a ton, for hammering the final nail in the coffin of the giant skeleton.)

Moral of the story- This is FAKE.There are some researchers indeed looking at Mahabharata being a real event in history. But this has nothing to do with it. In fact things like this harm the real researchers.

The issue of ancient Indian civilization is a very large and complex issue. If you are interested, please read my following posts.

My thoughts on Aryan Migration Theory

My thoughts on Aryan Migration Theory - II

Decoding Ancient Indus Script