Tiny Pedro

It was found sealed in a cave in a remote, rugged part of Wyoming, might have remained there forever. They could have built a Buc-ee's gas station in a day's inn right next door, never known they had a neighbor. It took a stroke of luck and a bundle of dynamite to find it, but what was it? Or the better question might be, who was it?

Evidence of a lost ancient race, proof of extraterrestrial visitation, an elaborate hoax staged by a prankster capable of moving a mountain. They got a small beam of light. True. Stuff. Most of us grew up believing that the North American continent was a vast, empty wilderness before, well pick one, the Vikings landed, or Christopher Columbus, or the Puritans, or the Pilgrims even.

We'll be charitable and call this idea we grew up with a myth instead of a lie. Because the truth is, humans have called North America home since the last ice age. At the White Sands National Park in New Mexico, footprints found preserved in ancient mud turned alkalized sand have been dated at somewhere between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.

For as much as we know, being the clever primates we are, we actually don't know very much at all about our origins, and we know even less about others like us, hominid cousins who once dominated their worlds, then slipped into memory, becoming fossils and artifacts for us to collect and study. What we lack in hard facts about the prehistoric peoples we make up for in legends, like this one about a race of little people, dangerous, aggressive, cannibalistic, that once populated the Ojai Mountains in Ohio and the Wind River and Pedro Mountain Ranges in Wyoming.

The world was very old in those days, its bones already weary in the time of the Numidaka. These were a people small of stature, with the tallest among them standing not but three feet. They were fearsome of visage, with rows of gleaming sharp canine teeth, a most savage effect when they opened their mouths. Their weapon was the bow, but of such cunning size, so miniature, that one might be tempted to take it for a child's toy.

But the arrows that flew from these diminutive archers were tipped with a deadly venom. Yet poison was only one of their tools, for the Numidaka had also the gift of dark magic. The Shoshone and the Pahut people had long counted the Numiduka their enemy, for they had been stalked and tormented, their children taken, their minds confused and vexed by the strange powers of these peculiar mountain dwarves.

The legends tell of how the Numidaka were ultimately defeated. It took warfare, generations of relentless battle, for the people to rid their homeland of their small and entirely vicious enemy. It's the sort of legend or tall tale that's extra easy to dismiss, on the grounds that we assume that if there had been a race of furious dwarves in the western wilderness, we'd have some kind of proof, right?

Some sort of evidence, a skeleton or two, maybe just a skull, the remnants of one of those wee bows or tiny arrowheads. File this one in the same box as the so-called red-headed giants of the American Southwest, you know, the ones whose enormous bones allegedly disappeared into the bowels of the Smithsonian Institute, never to be seen again.

Because a race of dwarves, like a race of giants, doesn't fit into the accepted historical narrative. And the man being the man hides those truths from us. Best to not have us asking too many questions. Best that we just put our heads down and go to work. But what if? The probable origin of a tiny male mummy said to have been found in a cave near the Pathfinder Reservation in central Wyoming by a Nebraskan who was prospecting for gold was the subject of much discussion in Cheyenne.

Wait, for real? Someone found a tiny mummified man in a cave in Wyoming? That man was named Cecil Maine of Alliance, Nebraska. Cecil was a prospector, a career many of us probably know mostly from Warner Brothers Looney Tunes. Here, Pierre, weigh this up. Yes, sir. And keep your thumb off of them scales or I'll blow it off.

She's pretty small. Ten dollars. Ten dollars? It's getting so a man can't earn a dishonest living no more. There's gold in them dire hills. Well, back with another one, eh? Eh, how about a couple of carats for this rock, Pierre? Of course. Keep the change, Doc. The few prospectors in the Old West who actually struck it rich probably earned every penny three or four or 20 times over because mining for gold or silver was a fact-breaking, difficult, grim, and sometimes deadly occupation.

Made more so by the fact that pretty much anyone who could scrape together a pickaxe, a shovel, a pan, and a tent was able to get in the game, qualified or not. What many discovered instead of riches was the harsh indifference to human dreams that is the wilderness. It took more than physical strength to survive. It took a kind of willpower, a single-minded intensity that most of us just don't have.

It's okay to admit that. I mean, we've all seen people melting down over too much ice in their Diet Coke or a car waiting a beat too long to accelerate after the light turns green or a gazillion other minor assaults to our patience and sanity. Do you really think that most of us could survive a year or two completely alone in the vast solitude of the West?

The days are a repeating blur of cold, wet, freezing, hot, bugs, hunger, sickness, despair. You'd think it's all sitting by the campfire and panning for nuggets. But what about the toothache, the kidney stone, the broken ankle, the blizzard that locks in for days on end, all screaming wind and bitter cold? Prospectors weren't just daintly tapping on rocks with their pickaxes like Yukon Cornelius and the rank and vast claymation classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

They were often underground, breathing toxic fumes, drinking filthy water, ever at risk of falls and cave-ins. An injury that might easily be treated by a doctor back in St. Louis could be a death sentence out in the wilderness. From the San Francisco Chronicle in 1886. The life of a prospector is a hard one, and to follow it, a man must have patience and perseverance and endure many hardships.

He is generally on the move, going from one camp to another, adopting any vacant cabin he may be fortunate enough to find. The prospector is seldom at home, except in severe weather. And often, not even men. Considering the number of prospectors engaged, the fortunate ones are few. And for the amount of labor performed, prospectors are scantily paid.

As Americans today, we seem to get most of our notions from TV and movies and the Internet. But back in the gold rush, folks picked up their ideas about prospecting from newspapers, like this story that ran in 1922. The life of a prospector is not fraught with fearful hardship. His bed of spruce boughs and the fur blanket, which is frequently his only covering at night in the coldest winter, seem to him to be the height of comfort.

And beans, cooked overnight and warmed up for breakfast, taste far better to him than the elaborate menu of the London restaurant to the man about town. Translation? Sleep on a pile of branches under an animal hide and live on beans. But romanticize it. Make it sound like the kind of mythic adventure worthy of a real man of courage and spirit.

The reality is far more tragic. For starters, in California alone, roughly 100,000 Native Americans died in the first two years of the gold rush. Diseases they had no immunity against. Starvation and genocide. The Klondike was a deadly destination, too. About 70,000 would-be gold miners never completed that trek. There were accidents and injuries, disease and starvation, and death due to exposure.

People died by drowning and from scurvy. People gave up from sheer exhaustion. The hunger for gold, for wealth, was a kind of madness that seemed to have a whole nation under its spell. Everybody is talking gold. Merchants are leaving their stores in the hands of clerks and heading for the field. Clerks are leaving good positions and their employers in the lurch for the glittering root of all evil.

There's nothing talked of but gold, and every street corner had an excited crowd discussing the prospects of becoming fabulously rich by a short stay at the gold fields of Lower California. So what's an entrepreneurial guy from Alliance, Nebraska, to do but join in that madness? Now, Alliance was no dusty pig path being declared the Queen City of the Plains in 1921.

But Cecil Maine caught a wicked case of gold fever with a fellow prospector named Frank Carr headed for the wilderness to stake a claim. The two made their way to the Pedro Mountains of Carbon County, Wyoming. Gold had been found in Wyoming in the 1860s. A legendary grizzled old mountain man named Lewis Robinson kicked off Wyoming's gold rush when he rolled into Salt Lake City with 40 ounces of gold he crushed from quartz in just two days.

Robinson and his two companions described rich mines laid in the door, not 200 miles distant. That was all it took to inspire a flood of would-be prospectors to pack up and head for Wyoming. Though mining became a steady operation in the South Pass region of the state, most of the mines were played out by the end of the 19th century.

There were always rumors, though, and hints and possibilities. So much gold had been found in Sweetwater County and in Fremont County. And there was Carbon County right there, snugged up to the east of Sweetwater, to the southeast of Fremont. Carbon County was rich in coal and minerals, a clue that gold might also be plentiful in the ground.

Plus, the Pedro Mountains were just west of the town of Casper, making the area reasonably accessible for prospecting. And finally, Cecil Main and Frank Carr were convinced that the glint of color they'd spotted on a rock face in the area was proof of riches just waiting to be discovered. It was a crazy time, OK? People were obsessed, so obsessed that they were seeing and finding gold everywhere.

Gold is found in chicken gizzard. With only a chicken gizzard as a clue, gold seekers in Rock Springs are sparing nothing to determine the origin of a hen whose internal organs recently gave up eight small nuggets of yellow gold. There could be no mistake that the small pellets were gold, experts said. A veteran prospector reported finding a panful of coarse gold out near the airport in Thermopolis, which is a fun detail because I bet you didn't expect the words airport and gold rust to share the same reality.

But remember, Cecil and Frank Carr were prospecting in Wyoming in the early 1930s. The two men were working in the Pedro Mountains near the town of Leo in northern Carbon County. Just 100 miles to the west was the Wind River Range, an area well-known to archaeologists and historians due to the number of ancient indigenous burial sites that had been found there, caves that served as vaults.

Ancient pictographs dotted sandstone and limestone cave walls and cliffs. There was evidence of prehistoric campsites and hunting sites. Most materials found have since been dated to about a thousand years old, although some finds are more than 5,000 years old. Now Cecil Maine and Frank Carr may have thought they were prospecting in a desolate pocket of Wyoming.

Perhaps they were unaware that once upon a time that land had been home to countless indigenous peoples. The men set up a dynamite charge and blasted open a hillside. When the smoke cleared, they hoped to be gazing upon a vein of ore. Instead, what lay before them was a cave. So small it barely qualified as a cave, but sure enough, there was a chamber in that blasted hillside.

Maine wriggled and shimmied his way inside. It appeared to be empty until Maine shined his light onto a ledge just a few feet above the ground. We don't know for certain if he screamed or slammed his head into the earthen ceiling just inches above him. We don't know if he cursed, dropped the light, or wet himself. Any and all reactions are possible, because what Maine's light landed on was the last thing he expected.

It was a man, or more accurately, the mummified body of a man. Except, this man was a miniature. Seated in the lotus position like the Buddha, mouth twisted in an odd sort of grin, eyes bulging, skull weirdly flattened. It was about half a foot tall and weighed maybe a pound. Maine didn't know what it was or how it got there, but he guessed it was in a matter of fact worth taking.

So that's what he did. The men showed up in Casper the next day. But when they showed people their peculiar find, they were ridiculed. Folks thought they were pulling a prank. It didn't take long, though, for many to be convinced that what the prospectors found in that blasted open chamber might just be something extraordinary.

Wyoming scientists are scratching their heads and pondering deeply over the latest archaeological acquisition, now in the temporary possession of Mrs. Cyrus Beard, state historian. To all appearances, the curious creature is a mummified pygmy. Possibly, they venture, the progenitor of the American Indian. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was more than a bit of a reach.

But people love to believe even the wildest theories, especially if there's a little sizzle or a little strangeness. And a tiny mummy found buried in rock in the Wyoming wilderness? It didn't get a whole lot stranger than that. The strangest feature is its dwarfish size, with its shrunken legs bent back sharply at the knees and pressed tightly against its flanks.

The creature, sitting upright, measures but five and a half inches in height, with the exception of its arms and head, which are rather large. The object is uniformly proportioned anatomically. The level of detail that this little mummy boasted? It was impressive. It has a fringe of silvery gray hair at the back of the head and a form of hair over its body.

The eyes, though glazed in the process of mummification, are distinct. They're about a quarter of an inch wide and are separated by a broad, flat nose. Frank Carr died shortly after he and Cecil Maine discovered the little man. And you know there were whispers of a curse. Meanwhile, whatever idea Cecil Maine had about the find bringing him fame and fortune, he was disappointed.

The mummy, now known as Pedro, after the mountain range where he'd been found, was the subject of controversy as much as fascination. Because many people just didn't believe Maine. Didn't believe that Pedro wasn't a hoax. Though there were also those who thought that Cecil Maine had found the sacred remains of one of the Pneumuctica.

The name Pneumuctica comes from the Shoshone and Paiute words for cannibal. There was great fear of them among the people. Fear of the Pneumuctica stealing children. Fear of their pranks and tricks. Violent, deadly pranks and tricks. Now the old legends and tales began circulating again. Folks describing in bloody detail how the Pneumuctica dealt with their own people who, due to illness or injury, were no longer able to contribute to society.

The Pneumuctica allegedly handled that by killing those individuals with a single blow to the head. And then they feasted on the flesh of their dead. It's said that all of the Rocky Mountain tribes united against the Pneumuctica. And it was only by their joining forces that this race of aggressive little warriors was defeated for good.

You can see how a find like Pedro the mummy sparked all sorts of outrageous guesses and theories. And that's because finding pygmy remains in North America wasn't unheard of. That's probably why so many who learned of Pedro were like, yeah, a little pygmy mummy in Wyoming, why not? I mean, after all, didn't they find tens of thousands of pygmy bodies buried in Tennessee in the 1800s?

Wait, what's that? They didn't teach you that in school? Well, here's the story. A teacher and farmer named Turner Lane was out plowing his fields on the banks of the Caney Fork about five miles south of Sparta, Tennessee. Lane uncovered a grave and then another and then multiple graves. Each grave was full of tiny skeletons carefully laid out and aligned, tucked into what looked to be coffins crafted of a bluish limestone not typically found in that part of the world.

Lane's first thought was that he'd stumbled across an ancient cemetery for children. Closer examination shocked the man. These weren't the bones of children. These were adult skulls, albeit very small adults. Lane measured and found that most appeared to be between two and a half to three feet tall. And these were human remains.

Lane was sure of it. Why? Because the bodies had been buried with objects, cooking utensils, pipes, bowls, and in each grave was tucked a vessel made of black clay. Inside the vessel, a conch shell. These were ritual burials, not bodies simply lying where they'd fallen. It doesn't get much weirder than roughly 75,000 dead pygmies buried in a field in Tennessee, does it?

Lane declared that he had found the remains of a race of tiny people who'd once populated that part of the country. He shipped specimens off to the Tennessee Antiquarian Society in Nashville. There was some nitpicking over the fact that Lane had been unable to find a complete perfect skeleton in any single grave. But come on, assuming the man was telling the truth, a whole lot of time passed since the bodies were buried.

Shifting soil, animal activity. There were reasonable explanations for why the bones weren't perfect and pristine. The news of the Tennessee pygmies went around the world. Experts examined the skulls and bones that Lane submitted and weighed in. One, Dr. Overton, said that it was the cranium of an adult human being of ordinary stature.

Though strangely, the back of the skull had been artificially flattened. Though by what means, who could say? Eventually, a geologist named George Featherstonhaugh paid Lane Turner a visit. Turner took Featherstonhaugh to multiple grave sites, and the geologist even found and opened up a new grave site himself. These weren't pygmies at all, he said, but simply secondary burials of normal-sized adult humans.

Why thousands of bodies required a secondary burial was something Featherstonhaugh couldn't offer an explanation for. But, and this is intriguing, he told a neighboring farmer that he was obligated as a scientist to be skeptical, and to do his utmost to offer another explanation that would account for the graves. In this case, his theory suggested that the so-called pygmy graves were nothing more than the remains of indigenous people whose bodies had been displayed on scaffolds and poles until the elements scoured flesh from bone, and what was left would be placed into a grave for burial.

So while experts and the Smithsonian Institute rolled their eyes and waited for the Tennessee pygmy craze to die down, another discovery was made, the Coffey County pygmies. It was the 1870s, 50 years after Lane's discovery. This batch of graves was spread over six acres, roughly 100,000 diminutive human bodies, none over three feet tall.

By this point, folks were like, really, Smithsonian? Really? They were buried in a sitting or standing position. The bones show that they were a dwarf tribe of people. Wyoming, Tennessee, and in the 1830s, Ohio. In Coshocton County, a 10-acre graveyard was discovered. Skeletons smaller in stature than the average Native American by at least a foot and a half were buried in regular rows, heads to the west and feet to the east.

The skulls sported well-preserved adult teeth. It was estimated that 30,000 bodies were buried there over a span of about 500 years. Missouri, too. A vast number of small graves were found on a farm approximately 15 miles southwest of St. Louis. These skeletons were buried in stone coffins, very similar to the grave sites Lane Turner found in Tennessee.

It was reported that all of the remains were of the pygmy race, except for one. That skeleton was a full-grown man, the legs cut off at the knee and arranged alongside the thigh bones. This sparked a new theory. Was there a custom among the people of the day to separate the bones of their dead before burial? Intriguing, but impossible to prove.

One, the limits of science in 1830, and two, the skeletons were little more than chalky white ash at this point and couldn't withstand much handling at all. Just 56 years had passed between the discovery of the thousands of so-called pygmy graves in Coffey County to the discovery of the mummified Tiny Pedro in Wyoming.

It makes sense that Cecil Maine was primed to believe in the vanished North American pygmy, as were so many other Americans. Naturally, he was confused by the response to his discovery. A theory had been advanced by some who have seen the mummy that it may be the remains of a small child who belonged to the unknown race of seemingly prehistoric people responsible for the creation of the steatite objects in the same region where the cave was said to be.

Steatite is another name for soapstone, and archaeologists working in Wyoming had found many steatite objects in the Pedro Mountains that had clearly been worked by human hands. These objects were mysteries, and that there was no real way to trace their origin, at least not back then, could those objects and the strange mummy be connected?

In April 1934, Maine finally succeeded in making a buck off his discovery. He sold the mummy to a man named Homer F. Sherrill of Crawford, Nebraska. And this is where the story goes from puzzling to bizarre. In December of that same year, Sherrill hotly defended his little prize against accusations that it was neither a pygmy nor prehistoric.

Sherrill challenged a statement made Sunday that the American Museum of Natural History of New York City had studied the specimen and reported it to be a prematurely born Indian babe, not necessarily prehistoric. Sherrill was outraged and wired the museum demanding an explanation. Sure enough, the museum said, nope, we never saw it.

We never examined it. Call the Associated Press and tell them they got their story wrong. According to Sherrill, the mummy had been examined by scientists in Denver. That the mummy was real and not a stitched together trick, that was no longer in doubt. Other scientists who have studied exhaustively include doctors Houghton and Park of Harvard Museum.

Those were the scientists who x-rayed the object. Three anatomical specialists of the Harvard Medical School, among others. Sherrill reported that the scientists had yet to agree upon the mummy's origin or its exact place on the timeline of human evolution. But Sherrill said a lot of things, including that he had loaned the mummy to the Field Museum in Chicago.

Which today has no record of the specimen ever being displayed. Though an archivist at the field said it was possible, possible that the mummy was an undocumented holding. What we do know is that Sherrill placed the mummy in a bell jar atop a wooden pedestal. And turned it into a roadside attraction in Casper, Wyoming.

Tiny Pedro was ensconced inside a tent. For the price of 25 cents, the curious could buy a look. From Casper, Tiny Pedro made his way to a drugstore owned by Floyd Jones in the town of Matizzi, Wyoming. Jones put the mummy on display in the front window of his store. And occasionally rented him out to other businesses in Casper and Denver.

He even had souvenir postcards featuring Tiny Pedro printed up. And those sold like crazy. But the more famous the mummy became, the more nervous Floyd Jones became. That his little sideshow attraction would be stolen. So he sold Tiny Pedro to the owner of a car dealership, Ivan Goodman. Goodman allegedly paid a few thousand dollars for the mummy and returned him to Casper.

A born salesman, Ivan Goodman understood the power of advertising. And invested big time in advertising Tiny Pedro. It's educational, it's scientific, it will amaze and thrill you. It's a pygmy preserve as it actually lived. Goodman, who went by the nickname Honest Ivan. Grew frustrated at the mummy's inability to move cars off the lot.

So he took him on the road. Carnivals, fairs and even college campuses. Now jump ahead a decade or so to the late 1940s. When Ivan Goodman's son, Dixon confirmed. That his dad had handed Tiny Pedro over to Dr. Harry Shapiro. The curator of biological anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Shapiro studied the mummy for a month. Though the kinds of testing available back then was sorely limited. He was able to do x-rays. Which confirmed that the mummy was no dummy. No clever fake, no hoax. Those x-rays of the mummy revealed human vertebrae. And other bones easily identified as human. The scientist said the owner, whom he identified only as a Casper businessman.

Had taken it back to Wyoming. Before microscopic and chemical tests of the tissue could be made. He could not estimate the age of the mummy. He said there was no indications of civilization on it. Such as cloth wrappings or ornaments. I can only say that this little thing is a human adult. It would be the first evidence of a race of little men on this continent that I've seen.

But then, before anything more could be learned about Tiny Pedro. He vanished. The story goes that Honest Ivan Goodman, the car dealer. Took another trip to New York City with the mummy in tow. This is where Tiny Pedro was somehow either lost. Or sold. Or loaned out to a man named Leonard Wadler. Ivan Goodman died not long after.

So who in the world was Leonard Wadler? Wasn't a scientist. Not a doctor. Not even a museum employee. Leonard Wadler headed up something called the Cultural Resource Center. Which sounds promisingly anthropological, right? But no. The Cultural Resource Center was a lonely hearts club. That promoted the virtues of remaining single.

Despite society's urges to marry. Leonard Wadler eventually moved to Florida. Where he hosted private showings of Tiny Pedro. Right up through 1975. He died five years later in 1980. Wadler's surviving family. They insisted they had no idea where the mummy might be. Tiny Pedro had not been seen in public since 1950. And now he'd vanished as completely.

As though he'd been a wild figment of the imagination. So let's jump ahead again to 1994. When a professor named Dr. George Gill at the University of Wyoming. Appeared on the TV show, Unsolved Mysteries. To give his thoughts on Tiny Pedro. Yeah, all the physicians and physical anthropologists that I know of. Who I've ever looked at.

That I've been able to verify. To actually talk to them. Have said that it's some type of infant. And it looks to them to be an anencephalic human infant. Which sounds plausible. Until you hear this. From a man named Eugene Bashor. It also has a full set of teeth. Quite prominent teeth. And infants would show two sets of undeveloped teeth still up in the jaws.

These have descended and there's no other teeth above them. Like a baby or a young person would have. Bashor had been obsessed with the little mummy since childhood. It was during the depression. And Bashor had to beg his father for the 25 cent entrance fee. Officials rushed Bashor through the tent so fast. That he didn't get a good long look at the mummy.

But he saw that it looked like an old person. Big nose, wide mouth, high brows. And a head proportional to the body. It didn't look like a child. Bashor spent 50 years looking for Tiny Pedro. For information on Tiny Pedro. He roamed the Pedro mountains. Looking for caves where there might be signs of other similar mummies.

But it was Dr. Gil who got lucky with that. A family in Cheyenne had watched that episode of Unsolved Mysteries. That featured Gil and the story of Tiny Pedro. They reached out and offered up a mummy of their own. Provided that Gil agreed to their terms. And he did. Examining the mummy just three times. And never overnight.

Chiquita, as they called it. Was the size of a potato. With blonde hairs poking out of the scalp. How'd that family wind up with Chiquita? A relative bought the mummy in 1929 from a sheep herder. And spent decades hidden away in a trunk in the attic. Testing at the Children's Hospital of Denver confirmed what Gil suspected.

Chiquita was the mummified remains of an infant born with anencephaly. Like Tiny Pedro. Chiquita was posed sitting upright. Legs tucked beneath the body. Arms wrapped around the torso. It was striking, Gil said. Because it was utterly unique. He'd examined hundreds of prehistoric burials. And there was nothing like these two peculiar mummies to be found in any of them.

And not just in Wyoming. In the world. In fact, the only other mummified anencephalic infant ever found. Was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. And the important thing about that is this. Anencephaly is a severe birth defect. The infant is born missing parts of its brain and skull. It's not survivable beyond a few days at most.

As Dr. Gil pointed out. Infants with anencephaly do look a little bit like tiny adults. Because the brain hasn't developed. These infant's proportions. Body size as compared to face and skull. Appear to match typical adult body proportions. As for Chiquita. The mummy dated to about 1500. Chiquita's DNA indicated that she was Native American.

Something of a surprise since she had blonde hair. Gil thinks more could be discovered. If the mummies were subjected to the latest and best tests. There are stories that kids growing up in Wyoming hear. Stories of the little people in the mountains. Stories passed down from the days when folks arrived in Wyoming on horseback.

Or wagon train or on foot. These stories are always attributed to the indigenous people. Which makes sense. Given that every Native American tribe. Seems to have a story of their own about the little people. The Comanche call them the Nunumbi. The race of wild cannibal dwarves of the west. To the Cherokees they are the Unwizonti.

A race of trickster humanoids the size of children. Possessing magical powers. And that's just a couple examples. The legends of this race of warlike little people. Are so widespread. It's hard to dismiss the possibility. That there might just be a ring of truth to it. Some suggest that the enormous and mysterious burial mounds.

That can be found in Ireland as well as North America. Aren't burial sites at all. But the homes of the little people. When something doesn't fit into the accepted historical narrative. We drop it into the baskets marked folklore and fairy tale. We say that the ancients had only a primitive understanding. Of the natural world and no comprehension of science.

So they made up stories to explain. And account for the kinds of phenomena. That we no longer pay much attention to. Like it's just thunder. We no longer need to spin a tale of the gods battling above our heads. To ease our fear of the sound of the sky cracking. When it comes to the idea of a race of little people. Who once populated the great plains and the mountains.

Even so far away as Alaska and Hawaii. It might just be legends. Tall tales. Maybe. Probably. Let's go with that. And put a neat little bow. On the stories of the tiny cannibal warriors. And once you do that. You can focus on the part of this story. That's all the way true. Those tens of thousands of graves in Tennessee.

Ohio. Missouri. Similar graves in Georgia. The mummified remains found in Wyoming. Whether the skeletal remains are those of pygmies or not. How does this not shatter any notion you have of this country. Being a virgin wilderness. Just waiting to be discovered and explored. There were people here. And there have been.

For millennia. Regardless of their size. People. Whole giant communities. Villages and cities. Of people. Who lived. And worked. And worshipped. And venerated their dead. Like us. And hey. If one of us. Happens to know the whereabouts of tiny Pedro. Why not come forward right now and help solve at least. That mystery.

Next time on true weird stuff. It was the most beautiful house in America. And she was the most luxurious ship to ever set sail. Linwood Hall. The Titanic. And the story of a man who rose from nothing. To unimaginable wealth. And unthinkable tragedy. On the next true weird stuff. Special thanks to our voice talents on this episode.

Sam Moore. Erin Cox. And Don Morgan. So Sherry. I was really familiar with this story. Because I remember it from many years ago. On unsolved mysteries. And as you're telling it. I went. Oh yeah. I remember this. But I don't remember a great deal about it. What sparked your interest in this story? Well you know. I heard that when I was a kid.

Growing up out there. I heard the stories of the. You know the ancient race of tiny cannibals. I thought what a load right. It was like the Wyoming version of the Jersey Devil. It was like a scary campfire story. But then when I grew up. I realized that. Oh wait a minute. That wasn't just a scary campfire story. There's actually.

So much legend and lore. Among the indigenous people. About these little folk. That were deadly and warlike. And aggressive and cannibals. And I had remembered. Probably on some. You know. Conspiracy theory post somewhere. Somebody. Talking about the pygmy graves. And I was like yeah. I wonder what. That's probably nothing.

Let me. Let me look into that. So I started by. Looking for the pygmy graves. In Tennessee. And was shocked by. Like that was a really big story. For a very long time. And one of the interesting things. About that particular. Set of events. Was the way that the people. Of the day and the press handled it. People back then were.

Were like. Oh wow yeah pygmy cemetery. Who to thunk it. Like they weren't so quick to shoot it down. And debunk it the way we are now. Like modern people are so afraid of being foolish. That you can tell. You can tell certain people. Hey Chad water's wet. And he's like says you. Okay settle down. Like your dignity is not riding on this particular battle.

Right. But I was. One of the things that really struck me. About the pygmy grave story in Tennessee. Was just how like people were ready to accept it. And you know. And regular listeners to this podcast know. That I'm not convinced. That we aren't sitting. Atop the remnants of. Many many. Advanced civilizations. Right.

You know we did if you're. If you're going. Look who be. You should listen to our. Episode called Adam and Eve. Declassified. Which is about. Geological cataclysm. So you know. I'm like the people of 1830. In Tennessee. I was like well yeah. I mean I think. We can't say for sure that isn't possible. And so it was that.

I started there. And then made my way to. Carbon County Wyoming. Tiny. Tiny Pedro. Who. When you look at the. When you look at it today. And you are a person. Who lives in a time where we have. 4D. Ultrasounds of. Children in utero. Right Max. Right. You look at tiny Pedro now. And you picture one of those 4D. Ultrasounds and you go.

That's just a baby. That's all that was. But back then. How could people have known. Well right. We didn't know what babies looked like in utero. Back then. So. Many questions. One of which is. Of course it isn't a baby. Because a baby's head is really big. It's not proportional. Where I looked at a picture of tiny Pedro.

Because pictures were taken. In fact I even saw. What I think is an x-ray picture. In looking online. So you look at that. And you go. Yeah this looks like a human being. And I don't know if it fits. Into any of the dwarfism categories. You had sort of mentioned that. I don't know how it does. The fact that it's sitting.

And the way that that is. And the joints were kind of strange. Is that correct? Yeah. On tiny Pedro. The best I could tell. So. You're looking for. What is a reasonable explanation. And of course. The fact that. Tiny Pedro. Ended up getting lost to time. Who could have lost that. I would think. That would be something that you would keep.

That it wouldn't end up. Oh I just put that piece of crap. Up in the attic. You know. What was wild to me. Is the chain of custody for tiny Pedro. That he went from being discovered. In this mind to. You know. Being in the window of a drugstore. To a car dealership. To showing up at bachelor parties. In New York City.

Before completely disappearing. So I do want to say. If you look at images of. Infants with anencephaly. So a major. Piece of the brain skull and scalp. Just doesn't develop in those cases. It's a neural tube defect. We know so much about it now. That we. Don't know then. Children. It's such a severe birth defect. There's no cure.

There's no treatment. There's no hope. But the. When you look at contemporary. Images. Of. Babies with anencephaly. You feel like you're looking at. Tiny Pedro. And nobody wants this to be. A pygmy from outer space. More than me. You know that. Right. Nobody wants this. To be real. More than I do. I want it so much. I can hardly stand it.

But. But I can say. That looking at. Contemporary. Images. Of anencephaly. And looking at. Tiny Pedro. Makes me think. Well he was. The beloved. Child. Of someone. And they preserved him. In that way. In that cave. That doesn't mean. I don't believe. In the pygmy. Graves. So. So let's talk about. Chiquita. For a moment.

Yeah. So Chiquita. Was found. So Chiquita. Is real. And had blonde hair. Which is. A possible. Genetic anomaly. Yeah. That may go with. Whatever it was. That she. Whatever else. She had going on. And you said. There was indeed. DNA. Evidence from that. But they. They do believe. That that was. An infant. Or a. Either an unborn.

Child. Or an infant. Or something. They don't. That this was a. Fully formed. Adult. So. If you remember. You know. Chiquita. Was found. Recently. After DNA. Was discovered. Right. When Tiny Pedro. Was found. We didn't even know. What DNA. Was yet. Right. The words. The word DNA. The letters. Nothing. But Chiquita. Is a modern.

Find. And so. They were able to. Date the mummy. To. Be about. 1500 years old. And they were able. To do DNA. Which if we could find. Tiny Pedro. We could potentially. Maybe. It would depend. On the sample. But we might be able. To run DNA. They proved. That Chiquita. Was Native American. And the blonde hair. You're right.

That could be. That could be. Any. Number of things. And Dr. Gill. Thinks. You know. Every year. As science. Moves forward. There's more. That we could learn. From. Chiquita. And from. Tiny. Pedro. If we could. Find. That artifact. Which. Where. The hell. Did that go? How do you lose. Something like that? That is. Yeah.

That is the thing. That's kind of. Mysterious to me. I thought. It's such. An American. Thing. A car dealer. Was trying. To sell cars. With tiny. Pedro. Tiny. Pedro. Or if it came. A roadside. Attraction. People. Came. Paid money. To see. I mean. It is so. American. It's so. Profoundly. American. And then. It ended up.

With this dude. In Florida. Who. Was. Can we please. Talk about. Leonard Wadler. And the cultural. Resource center. Which was really. Just encouraging people. To never get married. Did you not love. That little. So. American. Oddball. Cult. He wouldn't. Was. Yeah. He would invite people. Over to the house. In Florida.

To have a look. And then he died. In 1980. Not that long ago. No. And his family's like. We don't know. Where the mummy is. My brothers. And sisters. In Christ. What. When you cleaned out. Leonard's home. After his. Death. There was. Nobody. Nobody. There was no. Tiny. Pedro. Did he sell him. Or give him. Away. Before he died.

What. I mean. It's just. Gone. I would think. That would be. If that was in my family. That would be all. That would be all. Anybody I knew. Would talk about. The best guess I have. For what happened. To Tiny Pedro. At the Wadler home. In Florida. Is this. The Francis effect. So Max and I. Both of our moms. Are named Francis.

And both of those women. Had. They ran. Tight ships. They had spotless. Homes. They did not. Tolerate. Nonsense. Or clutter. If either. One of our mothers. Walked into the Wadler home. They would take one look. At Tiny Pedro. And he'd be into the black. Trash bag. And headed. Straight to the landfill. You know. And you know it's true.

It is. You know it's true. I guess you're right about that. I would be like. Mom. What do you mean. You threw Tiny Pedro away. That's an. That's an archaeological. Artifact. It was disgusting. It looked like crap. It was a toy. I threw it away. It's gross. I think that. It's possible. That. Tiny Pedro. Ended up in a landfill.

In Florida. I do. I don't even think. He ended up being donated. To goodwill. I think he might have ended up. In the trash. But that. Certainly. Now. That we could do DNA. Which is. The thought that everybody has. So. Can we talk about these other. Graves that were found. In like Tennessee. And Ohio. And. Yeah. Did you know about the pygmy.

The infamous pygmy. Graves. In North America. I didn't know about that. And I'm. I guess what's. I'm wondering about that. Is. Are there any artifacts. From that. I'm not. I don't know if you know. The answer to that. But. That is a question. You would have. Can they do any tests. On that stuff. To perhaps get some answers.

For this. There's a lot. Of different. There are a lot. Of different theories. Around that. And I think. There's. One theory. Is that. Those were. Those graves. Represent. The people. Of a thriving. Large settlement. And part of their. Death practice. In. Included. Breaking the bones. Breaking the skeleton. Into smaller pieces.

For compact burial. That's one theory. You heard it in the episode. But one. One expert said. These were indigenous people. This was a huge community. That's the other thing. Like we. As American schoolchildren. We are led to believe. That there were no giant. Thriving communities. Till Mr. White person got here. Am I right.

Right. Yeah. Am I. Am I. Am I telling that. We were led to believe. This was a pristine wilderness. It wasn't. It was. Full of people. And industry. And culture. And all of that. So one theory. Is that. These vast. Cemeteries. Represent. Those thriving. Communities. And that their. Death practice. Involved. Sky burial.

The bodies were left. To decay. In the elements. And then the skeletons. Were collapsed. To take up. Less space. That's a theory. That makes. Tremendous sense. Because we have. Adult. Skulls. Adult. Teeth. They measure. Femurs. And. Tibias. And all of that. And you can come to a pretty. Solid. Robust. Conclusion. That those were.

Adult human remains. That's one theory. And probably. If you think about that one. That's rational. Right. Right. That feels right to you. And they're cutting. They're cutting the legs. I think is what. What you had said. In some cases. In some cases. But not all. But you can get a pretty good idea. Of height. From. Fingertip to fingertip.

When somebody's arms. Are outstretched. Yeah. And they. They use. They have. Forensics. They have all these. Like really fascinating. Ways of. Determining. You know. Age. And time of death. And cause of death. And all of that. That's one theory. That applies to some of these. Remains. Others. Are a little shadier. And the simple truth is.

Is that the people of the past. You know. Like. Oh look. Here are all these pygmy graves. Okay. Well. We're going to plow over that. And build a road. We didn't. We didn't necessarily. Preserve things. Back then. The way we might. Today. I don't think they. They understood the significance of it. And. It's a weird thing.

Right. So. You know. We tend to think of the people. Of the past. As much less. Complex. Than ourselves. More simple. Their lives were more simple. Right. They. We say things like. They lived in superstition. You know. They said that the lord. The gods were throwing rocks at each other. Anytime there was thunder. Like.

We're so obnoxious. About the people of the past. As though. You know. We're living at some high watermark. For civilization. When the truth is. Is that. The people of the past. Had different priorities. They had a different relationship. With the natural world. And. And. The idea. That you might stumble across. Graves.

Okay. Well. Be that way. People are born. And then they die. That you didn't have the internet. You didn't have. Television. You didn't have. Pop culture. The way we have it now. You just didn't have any of those things. You didn't have Hollywood. You didn't have. The idea of cryptids. And mysteries. And. Conspiracy theories.

And all the things that we have now. A farmer in Tennessee. Uncovering all those graves. All he knew. Was that those were graves. And could there have been. A race of ancient. Dwarf like people. On the North American continent. Why sure. Why not. Right. Why the hell not. Sure. It's absolutely possible. And the fact. That there was.

The legend. About the cannibal part of this. I thought was kind of interesting too. That that seemed to be consistent. With a couple different tribes. Of Native Americans. Right. From. The Carolinas. To Alaska. That's how consistent. The war like. Little cannibals. That's how consistent. That. Is. From. Tribe to tribe.

Region to region. Which is. Always the thing. That makes me go. Hmm. Because I'm a firm believer. I was. I'm. I wanted to be an anthropologist. When I grew up. And I'm so disappointed. That. I became a radio host. Which is. About as far from the tour. About as far from each other. As they can be. But anytime. You find.

A consistent. Narrative. Thread. That transcends. Geography. And time. And culture. I think you have to look at it. Could it be a metaphor? Oh for sure. It could. Yeah. Could definitely be a metaphor. But isn't it interesting. That all of these indigenous peoples. Shared that. Story. Well. Yeah. And. And. We do. At least know.

While we don't know where Tiny Pedro. Has ended up. We do have pictures. Of him. In the x-ray. So we know. That this was something. That did exist. That it wasn't. Oh yeah. That that part. Was not a legend. And of course. A chain of ownership too. Now the thing about. Tiny Pedro. That. Is. So compelling. Um. He was only.

Found. By. The. Sheerest. Most random chance. If you've never been. To. Wyoming. You can't imagine. How vast and empty. And. Inhospitable. So much of that terrain is. And. Carbon County. Where. Pedro was found. You know. The idea. That. Cecil Maine. And Frank Carr. Placed their dynamite. Charge. In exactly. The right place.

To pull that particular. Hillside down. And reveal that particular. Cave. It's about one in a gazillion. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea. That he was. That this. Artifact. Was a hoax. That didn't. That didn't hold. For a minute. Really. Because the people in. Casper. And this was a huge story. In Casper. The people in Casper.

Could see. With their own. Eyes. The random. The sheer. Randomness. Of. These men. Finding. That artifact. And then the x-rays. Revealed that. It wasn't. You know. What do you call those. There's a word for it. A gaff. It wasn't. A stitch together. Or a puppet. Or a doll. It was. Whatever it was. It had human anatomy.

And all of that. And this. That's one of the details. About this. That's really interesting. Is how. It was. Authentic. Right from the jump. And as you often. Point out. We. We. There is this tendency. To think that we know. Everything there is. To be known. But when you go out there. And you see the terrain. In some place.

Like that. And how remote it is. You start to realize. There's a whole lot. That is. Undiscovered. It may be mapped out. But there's a lot. That's undiscovered. So there may be more. Evidence of this. Somewhere. And we're no good. We're not built. For deep time. Like. Our human brains. Balk. At deep time. And we. Balk at the idea.

Of our own. Extinction. The idea. That we. Could not exist. We forget that. For most of human history. We didn't. You didn't exist. And I didn't exist. Right. And we're going to. Not exist again. Pretty soon. But we have a very hard time. Believing. That we are not at the pinnacle. Every. Every generation. Every. Society.

Thinks. It's. Yeah. And one of the things that's really making America. As a culture. Deathly sick. Is. We're just. Absolutely. Sick. With. Nostalgia. That. There was some time in the past. That we could return to. Where we could peak again. When the course of history. Is. Ever forward. Relentlessly. So. You never go back.

And. Revisit. Those old peaks. And you have to understand. That the generation. That follows you. Will think. That it has peaked. Just like you thought. You had peaked. Just like your parents. Thought they had peaked. Just like their parents. The greatest generation. Thought they had peaked. Right. Is that not the way?

Right. So. We have a very hard time. Sitting. With the idea. That. We are just. The people of now. And that we will be followed. By people. And that we were. Preceded. By people. We. We struggle. With that. And we struggle. With the idea. That. The people. Of the past. The deep. Past. May have been. Plagued. By a race.

Of small. Aggressive. Cannibal. Dwarves. Just because. It sounds crazy. It does. Sound crazy. However. If you're able. To find evidence. You know. Maybe not. So crazy. And that's. And then. That's the other thing. So here comes. Here comes Chad. Why. Why can't we find any. Arrowheads. Well. Go back. And listen to the episode.

Called Adam and Eve. Revisited. Where we went. To great effort. To do the math. On. How long. An artifact. Can survive. Before the elements. In time. Turn it to. Dust. And make it. Unrecognizable. I believe. That if. Tiny Pedro. Had not been placed. On the ledge. In that. Cave. Um. We wouldn't be having. This conversation.

And now. I'm going to answer. The question. That. You're about to. That you're thinking. You're going. Well wait a minute. If it took dynamite. To get him out. Then how did he get. In. Do you want to take a shot. At that one. Well. I mean. The terrain has changed. I mean. Let's just say. Tiny Pedro. Was a thousand. Years old.

Let's say. Well. The terrain. And everything else. Has changed. During that time. And what might have been. An opening. Into a cave. Then. Since closed. Because of a landslide. Or God knows what. Thank you. Chiquita. In Cheyenne. Wyoming. Was dated at. Fifteen hundred. Years old. Right. Do you know how much. Seismic. And tectonic activity.

In that part of the world. Can go down. In fifteen hundred years. And the difference. Between like. The Appalachian Mountains. Which are ancient. And soft. And filled. With mystery. And the Rocky Mountains. Or the Wind River Range. Those are raw. And new. And jagged. And violent. Because. That landscape. Is younger. Than the landscape.

On the. Eastern United States. The mountain ranges. In the east. Are ancient. Mountain ranges. That we're talking about. Where Tiny Pedro. Was found. Those are new. Geologically speaking. They didn't pop up. In the 1930s. And just like. People were not built. For deep time. It doesn't. Work for us. To live. With constant.

Conscious awareness. Of how dynamic. And alive. The planet is. It's best. That we think of. The earth. Beneath our feet. Is stable. It's best. That we don't really. Spend a lot of time. Dwelling on. The fact that the planet. Is alive. And moving. And changing. And that some of those. Changes. Are going to be so. Intensely.

Dramatic. And violent. And not gradual. And incremental. The way we. You know. Just in our lifetime. We've been able to see. Certain things that have happened. Not just storms. We knew things. That affected. Japan. So dramatically. Or the one that was up. In Alaska. In 1964. The Good Friday. Earthquake. Which caused the tsunamis.

And all of that stuff. You can see. Just in our. You know. Recorded history. We've been able to. Witness. At least. Just a little bit of that. You take this over. Many thousands of years. Then you can see. How it changed. It's just. You know. Science. It's geology. And. Chemistry. And. All of that. And I think that. If.

Tiny Pedras people. Whoever they were. I mean. Clearly. You have to put. Put the human. Skin back on it. Once upon a time. A very long time ago. A woman was pregnant. And she had all the hopes. For that pregnancy. That anyone does. You know. Nobody. Nobody who's pregnant. Is. Sitting around. Dwelling on the fact. That they may have.

A child. Who doesn't make it. Pregnancy. Children. All of that. That's. That's throwing all of your hope. And all of your. Putting your. All of your eggs. Into the basket. Marked future. Right. It's just. So hopeful. Right. And the baby. There were no ultrasounds. Back then. There was no. No. Medicine. The way we know it.

That baby was born. And died. Very quickly. But that doesn't mean. That that child. Hadn't been. Wanted. Or loved. And mourned. Right. Because when we look. At the circumstances. Around. Tiny. Pedro's. Discovery. There was something. Ritualistic. About. The way. That this child. Had been. Or this. Entity. This being. Had been.

Placed. And carefully. Tucked. Into. This. Sort of. Depression. This raised ledge. Inside. This. Cavern. He. That baby. Wasn't just. Discarded. And left. For. The wolves. Right. So. We can go. Like. We can't. Ever know. The people. Of the past. Or who they were. Or what. Drove them. But there are. Things. Sometimes. That reach.

Hundreds of years. And connect us. And remind us. That. We. The world. Of. That child. Was unimaginable to us. But he was still loved. Yes. Mourned. And so. There's that beautiful moment. Of human. Connectivity. Across. This vast. Stretch of time. And then. You know. He's a roadside attraction. And then he just disappears.

Probably into a landfill. We could do better. I know. We could. We could just do better. We really. And should. Be doing better. So. As much as I want. To believe. That we found. A cannibal pygmy. Mummy. I don't think we did. That doesn't mean there weren't cannibal pygmies. And I'm fascinated. By the pygmy graves. I am too.

Missouri. Tennessee. Ohio. Georgia. And. They were everywhere. Yeah. It's just. Everywhere. And why is it that people. Are so quick to believe in the redheaded. Giants of the southwest. But you bring one pygmy. With a taste for human flesh. And suddenly you're a kook. Fine. I see how it is. So. That is the story of Tiny Pedro.

And that's this episode. Of True Weird Stuff. If you're listening to this one. It was released. It's our first new episode. Of 2026. And we're going to keep. Creating new episodes. Until they bomb us. Out of. Existence. Which. Or we. Or we die. At the microphone. Or we die at the mic. I gotta tell you. We did an episode.

In 2025. Called The Bunker. Yeah. That was. It was about. It was about. The. Nuclear bunker. That was built. At the Greenbrier Resort. As a place. For the U.S. Government. To continue. In the event of World War Three. But we also visited. Some civil defense shelters. And. Took a tour. Of some of the bunkers. Being built.

By our tech overlords. Like Mark Zuckerberg. In Ohio. And. Heard from. A man. Who. Consults. With these tech overlords. Who said. They're building these bunkers. Because they're mostly. Afraid of a woman. With a hungry child. Asking for food. So. When we did that episode. We had some distance. From it. You know. We had our.

Ironic. We're making a podcast about it. Distance from it. But as we enter. These first days. Of 2026. I'm over here like. Shit. They are building these bunkers. And they're afraid of women. With hungry children. Oh my God. So we're going to keep. Cranking out your weird stuff. Until they get us. And hopefully. That will be no time soon.

Let's hope. Next week. We're going to tell the story. Of. It's a great American story. I want you to come. From rags to riches. I want you to be a guy. Who starts out. As a meat cutter. In a shitty little shop. Who ends up becoming. One of the most wealthy. And powerful people. In all of the United States. And his story.

Takes us. From that butcher shop. To the home. They called the American Versailles. To the unsinkable ship. And what happened to her. On that cold April night. 1912. Titanic. On the next. True. Weird stuff. And if you listen to us. On Apple Podcasts. Hit. The plus button. In the top right corner. And now it helps. An independent podcast.

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