Megalithic Marvels - Aruba: Island of Giants / Heather Arnold

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

In this episode we travel to the Caribbean Sea where a small island is home to some GIANT mysteries. I sit down with author and researcher Heather Arnold, who lives on Aruba, to learn about her extensive research into the vast ancient legends concerning this land. Heather goes in depth sharing about Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci's expedition to Aruba and why he dubbed it "The Island of Giants." She also talks about archaeological research that has been done, geological evidences and provides photographs of... skulls. SHOW NOTES Heather Arnold on Twitter Island of Giants Facebook Page

They dock the boat off the coast. They get out of the ship. And in the sand, they see these giant footprints. And they're immediately intrigued. And so they begin to follow the footprints, and they come across these women, and they're giants. The women beckoned the men back to their village. He noted how they lived, and they try to communicate,

and there's kind of a communication breakdown. And Besputje just keeps marveling at the size of these women. He can't believe how. how big they are. I think we're looking again at a lost technology. And it was this ancient apocalypse 12,800 years ago that wiped that from the human memory backs. Why were these ancient elongated, skull peoples or humanoids of Malta living underground?

And they were what some people have called giants, probably no more than seven to eight feet tall. And those giants have been pulled out of American mouth. Now I believe we're talking prior to 9,700 BC for the original construction of the Sphinx. Whether it's the colossal statue heads that have been on earth to all the strange artifacts you've been showing in the museums, the more I learn about the Omet culture, really the more fascinated I become. Well, I am excited to be joined by researcher and author of the Island of Giants, Heather Arnold, today. And we're going to get into talking about some giant lore. I'm really excited to hear about Heather's journey into this very interesting topic that I'm also very into, as you know.

And we're going to talk about the ancient oral traditions of giants on these islands, especially the island of Aruba where she lives, get into her research, get into the evidence. I can't wait to ask her about specimens and anything like that she's seen. So Heather, thank you so much for joining me today in Megalithic Marbles. Oh, Derek, thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it. And it's an honor to be on your show. Yeah, I've enjoyed following you for, man, many years on Facebook, Instagram, seeing your posts of you on these beautiful islands exploring.

And it seems like you're always posting something about a petroglyph or an equinox. And then I started to see you post more about giants. And then you wrote this book. And so kind of tell us a little bit about your giant. journey into this interesting topic of giants and what led you to Aruba of all places. Yes, for sure. My pleasure. So I first came to Aruba in 2005 and I was starting a tour company.

So my tour was doing Harley Davidson rentals and tours and private Jeep tours. So I wanted to distinguish the tour by being as historically accurate as possible. And part of that was the archaeology of Aruba specifically. So I began to do extensive research on the island's prehistory, the archaic age, moving on to colonialism. And I realized that there wasn't a lot of information. And the information was very sparse and seemed inaccurate. For example, the islands were what the people here in Aruba are taught. thought is that the islands were called the useless islands. That was the original name of Aruba.

And when I say islands, I'm actually probably most of the time, unless I'm specific talking about three islands, because these three islands were all one island at one point. It was a series of mega tsunamis that separated the islands. So we have Aruba, Bonner, and Curacao. And the geological evidence shows that they were all three, one island. So when I understand, I understand, understood that this is what the children were being taught and this is what people were saying, that they were called the useless islands. I was very intrigued because, first of all, here in Aruba, where I am, as you noted, there's a ton of gold. You know, no island is useless if it has gold. Also another very valuable resource that has now been, and now pretty much extinct on the island, sadly, are Brazilwood trees. And Brazilwood, a beautiful red wood that is used to make instruments, bows, for example, for violins, and the dye that it comes from the tree, it was at that time, particularly of the colonialism, in the 1400s, 1500s prize for its color purple, for the royal robes, etc.

So I understood right away there was some sort of, excuse me, subterfuge going on. And then I began to do extensive research. I went to the Archaeology Museum here, which the Archaeology Museum is very extensive here. Its sister museum is the Smithsonian, just to put that out there. So I didn't get a lot of information. And then I looked online and I found a talk given by the head of archaeology here in Aruba, talking about the 500-year anniversary of Aruba. and he was very, as an Aruban, very offended because he's saying,

why are we celebrating 500 years when Aruba's been around for thousands, millions of years, why are we just celebrating 500 years since essentially the explorers came? And then he went on a bizarre rant during this talk about, and there were never any giants in Aruba. Don't even think about there being giants in Aruba. see any reports of giants in Aruba. It was just done by Vespucci to promote books and newspapers. And I thought, wow, that's so strange because no one said anything about giants. I didn't even know about giants here in Aruba. And from that moment forward, I realized there must

have been giants in Aruba. So I spent the better part of 15 years going to medical libraries and universities, antique bookshops in Europe, all these different places to get and collect the most extensive collection of archaeological reports, field reports, peer-reviewed journals, etc., documenting firsthand knowledge of researchers, of investigators who had actually seen these bones and written about them. And it was through my archaeological research that I found out, for sure that there were giants on these islands, that they lived here.

At first, when I began my research, they said 5,000 years ago, and now the date has been pushed to 7,000 years. Personally, I think it's even much longer. It's much older. And it was through this research and then understanding how specimens have just disappeared, you know, the same story we hear. And then actually going to a lot of these sites, this particularly sites that are involved. all megaliths that I realized that there were giants on the island. They lived here about 7,000 years ago.

And they have an amazing story to tell. And sadly, even as I sit here today, and I've done radio interviews here on the island and done stuff online here locally, a lot of people don't know about the giants and know that they were here. And it's actually sad because part of my mission, I believe, in life, is really telling the story of the giants. You know, the giants didn't, you know, I didn't find the giants, the giants found me. And I left my whole life in New York and came down here and with my daughter, who is a Rubin and an American.

And now I'm just researching 100% of the time. And it's a joy and really an honor. Fascinating journey. So you go from New York to Aruba to start this tour company. And then remind me again, So you're sitting in this seminar where this guy saying there's no giants. What was this talk he was doing and what was the purpose of that? So the talk was when I was doing research, I found it online.

It might still be online. And his talk was about they were doing a 500-year birthday for Aruba. And 500 years would take you to, at that point was 1499, which was when Vespucci first came over to what is now Aruba. Vespucci was the first one to document the giants here. He did so rather extensively. And if you look at the earliest map of Aruba, which is the Mapus Mundi,

that was designed by cartographer Wandae La Cosa, in approximately 1501, 1502, the date is a little fuzzy. But nonetheless, Aruba was called the island of the giants. And so the talk that was given was why, are we celebrating 500 years when, as an archaeologist, Raymondo, which is his first name, the head of scientific research, he said, you know, Aruba has had inhabitation for at least 5,000 years.

And he was a little disgruntled at having a 500-year birthday for Aruba when, in fact, that's not, you know, just because it was discovered, quote, unquote, discovered in, you know, 1499 it had been around and inhabited far longer than that. So you're sitting there and this guy's, this academic, you know, talking about 500 years of history and Aruba's just kind of blatantly saying multiple times, there's no such thing as giants. There was never giants here. And I love how your BS meter went off. And you're like, okay, we now know in the era of the age we're living, that probably means the opposite is true, right? And so you start doing digging and let's get into some of the research that you document in your book.

And tell people real quick, where can they buy your book? Where can they find it? My book is not published yet. I'm publishing it down here in Aruba. That was also part of my journey to be here. I want to do it in Aruba. Because, again, a lot of people here don't know the history in Bonner or Curacao. And so I think to generate more interest, I am.

publishing the book down here in Aruba. So the book will have, you know, the evidence, archaeological reports, pictures, photos from all of the archaeological record. And also I'm doing something interesting, which archaeologists don't often do, if at all, is interviewing the local population. The local population has a lot of stories about giants.

And even though some may seem far-fetched but others are, for example, my friend, she told me I had a giant in my family. He was my great, great uncle, and he had huge hands and a huge head and a huge jaw. And he was recruited as a boxer in South America. And he ended up killing his opponent. So he couldn't be a boxer anymore. And so it's those types of stories about giants that from the local population, what they've heard, what they've encountered,

that I also incorporate in the story because it also adds to the history of the giants on the island. People having evidence of seeing, presumably, what they thought was a Dutch person, but turned out to be a German person shortly after World War II, coming here in boats, digging up bones, recruiting the local population to dig up bones of giants in a cave system

that's not far from my home. So that's kind of the stuff that you'll find in the book, as well obviously as the archaeological evidence. Awesome. So yeah, regarding the ancient oral traditions or legends, just let's start there a little bit. Do you have some favorite stories that you found regarding these ancient legends of giants,

whether it was like you said, people from the good old days who uncovered a skeleton or whatever, just start there with oral traditions. traditions. Yeah, so one of my favorite is a stone that I'm going to be visiting again for the second time, thankfully, the first week of October, on the island of Bonner. And on Bonner is a stone called the Mother's Stone. It's a tremendously large monolith of limestone that faces the ocean. and it has a huge indentation, enough for a human, an adult human, to go into in the center of the stone. And that stone is called the mother stone because that indentation is considered a navel.

And they consider that stone one of the navels of the earth. Interestingly, it actually aligns with another navel I've seen, a very famous one, on Easter Island. So I've actually done a little bit of research about navels of the world. and their connection and it's fascinating and the different lore surrounding it. So in this case, in Bonner, this mother stone, this navel, it's traditionally and locally thought of if you have an issue, if you have a problem, you can go in the fetal position. As an adult human, you would have to go in the fetal position within the navel and you curl up. And if you have any issues, you can, it will solve your issues, your elements, give you answers to questions.

Also, you'll find strewn around the base of this stone, a lot of skeletal remains. It's thought that a lot of animals on the island go to die there because they're closer to the mother. So that navel getting to the mother part within the stone is thought to be an umbilical cord. And the umbilical cord connects to a mother's source within the center of the earth. And she is the source of the giants. So it's through this hole, this navel of this stone, that the giants were said to have been born. And to me, that's one of the most fascinating parts of the lore of the giants. Because you see the stone, you see this navel, and you see the skeletal remains.

And sometimes you'll even see little offerings and such surrounding that stone as well. And so that's one of the more fascinating ones. There have been beautiful paintings done by local artists depicting this concept of it being a naval and being a birthing stone of the giants. And that's one of my favorite ones. And that will be obviously in the book as well in more detail about that stone. I hope to go into the center of the stone this trip. I was unable to do so the last trip because I had flip-flops on, but now I'm going with my hiking boots.

And because it's really sharp limestone. You have to wear gloves. You have to climb up. And I'm hoping to get into the center of it. But it's a fascinating monolith. And interestingly, very few people go to Bonner. So it's this wonderful law, this, you know, a lot of people come to Aruba, but not so many people go to Bonner. So it's, and hopefully we'll help bolster their tourism.

there as well because the archaeology in Bonner is equal to Aruba. So Aruba and Boner have the most archaeology that is maintained. And Curacao probably has the least because Curacao has a different climate. They had a lot of farming. They had a lot of plantations and such. And so the ground and the earth has been disturbed more so than Boner and Aruba. Fascinating. Is there any even like old newspaper articles you've discovered that like we find in North America, right, of the late 1800s, early 1900s that document giants found at Lovelock Cave, for example.

I mean, as you know, you've probably seen hundreds of these, even the New York Times referencing seven to nine foot, ten foot tall giants. Anything like that in Aruba from their old newspapers? Yes. as a matter of fact, and it's not in a Rubin newspaper, it's the Redding Eagle, which is still in publication in Pennsylvania. It was in 1980. A journalist came to Curacao. And in Curacao, it's most fascinating because there was a gentleman named Chris Engels. And he was a Dutch man living in Curacao. These islands, by the way, are part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. So this gentleman was living there. And he had read the stories of Vespels. Vespucci's letters are very specific about his interactions with the giants, what they look like, where they lived, how they interacted with other people, their weapons, their size, of course, which is why Vespucci came up with calling Aruba, the island of the giants. And so he was convinced there were giants here in Aruba. He got a message from someone here in Aruba of a farmer who was digging in his land and uncovered two massive skulls of humans. One of the skulls actually still had its hand fused to the side of its face.

And this is interesting because that's two ways the giants were buried were supine and also in the fetal position with their hands to their face. So he uncovered these two skulls, and he contacted Chris Angles because he knew that he was interested. And Chris sent over a team, and they came here to Aruba, and they uncovered one of the largest archaic burial grounds in the entire Caribbean. They uncovered, as consequential archaeological excavations, uncovered over 72 skeletons. They stopped at 72 because there were so many. they didn't even have the manpower to gather all of the remains. And thankfully so. And so he sent over a team and they began to excavate.

And they got these two skulls. The rest of the bones, which is a story we often hear, disintegrated upon leaving the earth. So at least he got the skulls. And he brought the skulls over back to Curacao and tried to get archaeologists and or anthropologists to look at the remains. And sadly, no one would do so. It was so controversial.

And this was in the 1970s. Even at that time, it was very controversial. No one wanted to touch it. No one believed it. He did eventually initiate the help of the former head of the Tropical Museum of Amsterdam. And she came over to Curacao and investigated the skulls. He consequently put out a report called The Quest for the Giants. And in that report, it documents her archaeological finds.

And her archaeological finds concluded that these were skulls of giants. The hand was the real clincher because she was able to take very good measurements from that hand. And she determined the size of the giants to be at least eight feet tall. And so then Chris wanted to put these skulls in the tropical museum. and she wouldn't allow them to be in the tropical museum. So he built his own museum in Curacao, which is still there. It's called the Curacao Museum. And in 1980, a journalist from the Redding Eagle went down to Curacao and saw the skulls,

so of course that were in the basement. And by the skulls, the description was these were skulls of the race of giants who lived on the islands. And they were believed to be over eight feet tall. And so this article, you can find this article. I posted it on my social media. And this was the last communication about the skulls that I can find. I have consequently been trying to repatriate those skulls back here to Aruba, as I'm working on starting a new museum here in Aruba that will portion. And the skulls are gone.

So the skulls are completely missing. So this article came out and now no one can find the skulls. It's believed maybe they're at Leiden University in the Netherlands. I've talked to the curator there, the head of archaeology there. I talked to the archaeologist here in Aruba, and no one seems to know where the skulls are. So now I've moved up in the ranks to people working in the government. on behalf of Aruba but in the Netherlands and I'm hopeful to find the skulls

because firstly they belong in Aruba and secondly I'd love to have them in the museum where they would be everyone would love to see them it would be a wonderful thing for everybody to see but sadly that's the only article I found on the giants but it's very definitive

and the skulls do exist I have photos of those skulls Okay, wow. So you actually have photos of the skulls mentioned in this 1980 article. Yes. The skulls were not in the article, but I found the, which took me years to find the, the archaeological report done by Chris Engels in 1970 on the skulls, where he had the anthropologists from the tropical museum come over. And she was the one who wrote up the report. It's in French, and fortunately, I speak French. I was able to read the whole archeological report. It took me so long and so much money to get a hold of that report. It's a report that is not easy to find.

As a matter of fact, I'm so paranoid. I have one in a safe in the United States because I'm so paranoid about this study going missing. And it has photos of the skulls and all the documentation of the skulls. Sadly, as an aside note, the anthropologists who did the research on these skulls. Her recommendation was to carbon 14 date the skulls. They had their teeth. So a lot of their information was still in their teeth, which are very large teeth.

They were shovel-shaped, which is another interesting component of the giants. And she then got on a plane and Kurosau headed towards Peru to do more research on another topic. her plane crashed and she died. And that is the last we hear of any type of research being done publicly on the skulls. So it's been a real struggle to find the skulls and to get them back. I am hopeful in my lifetime. I will get the skulls back to Aruba. Wow. She dies on a plane crash. No wonder you're a little bit paranoid about some of us. And you had to spend a lot of your own money, it sounds like, to just track down this one document. Just one. That was just one. I mean, I have just spent a fortune over the years. Not only that, of my own money, not only that, but trying to get into these medical libraries. So interestingly, a lot of the archaeological evidence of the giants is found in medical libraries. Even a medical library that wasn't far from my home in New York at Stony Brook University on Long Island. And I had to, you know, bribe and pray and beg and please let me. Please let me.

be into, so I can just take photos of the archaeological reports. And this was a constant thing that I've gone through through the years. At this moment, I feel I have every single archaeological report. I believe at this moment, after talking to the archaeologists at the museum here, the archaeology museum in Aruba, that I have more than they do at this point. So I'm happy about that. But yes, there is a level of paranoia. I try to make multiple copies of every, report that I have and and keep some in different places. So God forbid something happen. So we've got these oral traditions of giants and it's cool that we've even got this 1970s and 80s research and article about it and photos. Love hearing that. You've mentioned

Vespucci several times. Tell us a little bit more about his writings, his research, anything else he said about the giants that we got to know? Well, you know, the interesting thing with Vespucci and his whole journey was that he was really focused on the research. So Vespucci was documenting a lot of things. He had people on the ships who were, you know, interested in flora and phana, pharmacists. He didn't just think of himself as someone.

who was getting treasure. He thought of himself as someone who was actually documenting the people of his surroundings and coming back with this information, which he found to be very valuable. And so what he determined was when his ship, so first he came to, the already relationship had been cemented through Christopher Columbus when the mainland South Americans in what is now present day Venezuela. And so it was through the interaction with Christopher Columbus and the people of South America that he determined that the information about Aruba. I don't know what that information was.

I believe some of it had to do with the fact that probably there was gold in Aruba. But more importantly, he also understood that there were giants who lived in Aruba. So this was an interesting component. So Vespucci, when he got the contract to come over from Christopher Columbus, he overtook that contract and came over on his list to do was to go to Aruba, what is now Aruba. And so he came over with his men, and he's very specific about what just happened. You know, they dock the boat off the coast, they get out of the ship, and in the sand they see these giant footprints. and they're immediately intrigued. And so they begin to follow the footprints,

and they come across these women, and they're giants. There's an older woman who appears to be like a grandmother, a woman who appears to be a mother and two teenage girls. He surmises to be about 15, 16 years old. And so the women beckon the men back to their village. He noted how they lived. And it's a pretty, what I would consider, traditional. indigenous village of how they built their homes.

And they try to communicate, and there's kind of a communication breakdown. And Bespochi just keeps marveling at the size of these women. He can't believe how big they are, including the teenage girls. And he notes to the men, who he brings with him, let's take the two teenage girls back to the ship and bring them as souvenirs back to Europe,

which was sadly a common thing that occurred. And so while they're coming up with this master plan, the 36 men come back to the camp or their village. And they had apparently been on some hunting trip or something because Vespucci starts talking about not only their huge size, but the huge size of their weapons. He's trying to figure out what they could use them for. He doesn't even think he can lift the weapons.

That's how big they are. And the men are a little bit aggressive. And he realizes at that moment, he has to abort mission on taking the two teenage girls and begins to head back to their ship and tells all his fellow peers, you know, let's go back to the ship. So they're going back through the sand and right behind them are the giants following. These men are following all the time. And he notes in his letters, if they were kneeling, they would still be. taller than me standing.

I have found documentation that Vespucci was almost six feet tall because another common thing that people like to say, oh, well, the Europeans of that time were much shorter and that's not the case with Vesbucci was actually a rather tall person. So going back to the ship and Vespucci documents us. It's called the letters of the new world. It's a book that anyone can get. it's in most libraries. So he's going back to the ship and the giants are still coming into the water.

So now he's freaking out because these giants are so tall. So the height of the water is not affecting them in any way. So he makes it back to the ship and the giants are there and then they start shooting arrows at the men. And the men get scared. And Vespucci orders them to shoot off a cannon just to scare the giants, which it's quite successful. And he ends the, the, whole notation on this interaction with that he thought that day he was going to die. It was one of the scariest moments. And mind you, he had just left an island off the coast of Venezuela, further east

of where I am now in Aruba, where he saw a human on a spitfire being roasted and eaten. So he was actually more afraid of the giants, interestingly, than of cannibals, which was quite fascinating. And then he finally says at the end of his documentation, I actually thought I was going to die that day, and I named the islands, the islands of the giants because of the large statured people who live there. And that was the name that stuck with the island for some time. So fascinating hearing these early explorer accounts. I love it. I love what you just shared. I know you've been to Easter Island, so I was going to had it in my notes to ask you about this as well because I did some extensive research on Easter Island and found some similar stories,

you know, from these early Dutch explorers. I think it was Rogaveen. He saw just some weird stuff with what he called the natives when he arrived to Easter Island. But then if my memory serves me right, they were exploring some many islands around Easter Island. And they basically state that they saw, you know, 12-foot-tall giants on the, you know, on the island. And very similar, they were kind of very scared of them and they chased them and the giants chased them. And so I just, that's so fascinating to hear their early explorer accounts. So the island of giants. Let's ask you about, you had a post recently about, about, um,

some petroglyphs I've seen and Equinox alignments. Tell us a little bit about that and do you think this was, were any of this stuff made or crafted by these giants? So there are extensive megaliths on the island of Aruba. Of all the islands, Aruba probably has the most, again, because of the climate here in Aruba, it's not very conducive to farming. It's quite frankly a desert island.

So a lot of the land is exactly how it was very, very long ago. Whereas in Curacao, more extensively, most extensively, and Bonner to a certain degree, there was more farming, plantations, et cetera. So things have been moved or buried. But here in Aruba, there are megaliths. So through my research and through meeting the people here who have put, pointed me in the right direction, invited me to their homes, to private lands. I've uncovered 13 balanced stones. And these are massive, massive stones. Bigger than even if people are familiar

with North Salem, New York, there's the balanced stone. And that's, I believe, I think it's a 60-ton balanced stone. These are even, these are two, three times a size. They're always oriented. in a certain direction. And I've been mapping where they're pointing, their latitude and longitude, what direction they're facing. And through it, I have mapped them. And the map is quite intriguing. So the petroglyph sites, and Aruba has extensive petroglyphs, probably one of the most petroglyphs of any of the Caribbean islands. And the megalis all align. So, most of the petroglyphs go northwest to southeast in parallel lines that intersect the island. And the megaliths, the balance stones in particular, they also follow those same lines.

I've often thought maybe it's following fault lines, and I have seen a fault line map, but there's no real connection there. But also they form, in some cases, a very intriguing component of the giants. And I know that's intriguing because this occurred also in their burials, that they are obsessed with isosceles triangles. So oftentimes these megalithic sites will form isosceles triangles. And I connect these megalites to the giants because their burials were also done in the shape. of Isosceles triangles. And this is noted in the archaeological report. So, for example, the burials, there will be a giant at each of the angles of the triangle,

and then average statured people making up the lines that connect the angles of the triangle. And that's another interesting note. So at the time the giants were here in Aruba, they were also with average statured people. As a matter of fact, some of the average, statured people had strange skull deformation as well. Not the skull deformation that the giants had, which were elongated skulls, but they had like this bulbous, like skulls, like these two bumps at the top. And this is, oh, sorry, again noted in the archaeological record. So the Salis triangles comes up a lot here in the megalith sites and in the burials. Also, I determined that

there are three sites that are what I would consider, and I'm sure we're considered, sacred, very sacred sites to the giants. One of them is a cave system called Kanesito Cave. It's in this tremendous monolith of limestone. And then there are two other places. One is called Kasabari rock formation, which is this giant mound of stones and then Iyo rock formation. All three sites have petroglyphs as well. And if you align, them, they form a perfect isosceles triangle. And the statistical analysis of this happening naturally is 0.001%. So there is this connection between the giants and isosceles triangles and the giants and the megalites. So because the isosceles triangles spanned both of these instances,

I believe the giants did, in fact, do these megaliths. There's no other way for an average statured person to move these stones. I don't know if there was some special component or something they knew how to do, levitating the stone, reversing gravity, making zero gravity. I don't quite know that component and not sure if I ever will. But they definitely were moving stones and positioning them in certain ways. For example, the balanced stones are facing another site. So for some of the stones, they'll be facing a petroglyph panel.

And they're always pointed. All these balanced stones are pointing. They'll be pointing to a cave. They'll be pointing to a burial. And so these were deliberate megaliths. They weren't just put somewhere to say, oh, this is our town. A lot of people say, oh, they did this so that people would know that this where the town was or if they're looking, they can see, oh, yeah, okay, there's the rock that I know

I have to walk that way. I don't see why anyone would go to this much effort for something so benign. And furthermore, a lot of these sites line up with astronomical celestial events. So the solstices and the equinox are, again, as is a global phenomenon, documented very well here that I've discovered. No one has even looked at these connections between what's going on in the sky and what's going on here in the ground. And I found probably one of my most fascinating finds was the winter solstice sunrise that peeks through a balanced stone that's almost like a dolman, big square stone on top with the other stones bracing it at the bottom. And the sun at the winter, solstice and in the ancients, the giants, they accounted for the hills in the background. So the way

that they built this was that the sun at sunrise has to clear these hills, even though the sun has risen in other parts of the island, it has to clear the hills in order for the sun to shine through. And they built the megalis specifically so that they were high enough that through the center of these balance stones, the sun would come through because they, accounted for it having to be a little later in time due to the hills. And that, to me, was the most fascinating. And adjacent to it are two equinox markers that look like reptiles, almost, almost snakes. And that's another common theme, snakes, frogs, here in turtles. And this, again, is another global phenomenon that you'll find. And next to it are these two heads and in between

on the equinox, the sun comes right through these two heads that are adjacent to this site. And this is all at Iowa Rockformation. It's a public place. Anyone can go. It's open to the public. It's protected by the government. Thank goodness. And these are some of the sites that I've found. And of course, because I'm in Aruba now, I can do more of this research. And I used to have to write everything down and hope that my schedule would permit me to be here at those certain times. And thankfully, now I can be here at all those times, and that's the research I'm doing. So through this research, I found equinox markers and winter solstice and summer solstice markers as well. Wow.

So you said something I got to go back to. I think you said really quick in passing that your research has found that these giants, their skulls, were elongated. Yes. Please talk more about that. Yes. So the giants had elongated skulls. So this elongation was different from what your audience might think of the parochus skulls. I'm sure everyone's familiar with Brian Forrester's work, where the skulls go up.

The skulls here go up and then back. So the elongation is to the back. But the anatomy of the giant accommodates for this, this weight, this additional weight of the brain going towards the back of the skull. Also, the skulls were bigger, so the brain capacity was bigger. So where the neck intersects into the skull accommodates the weight of the skull being in the back. Also, where the ears are is different, where the eyes are different than modern humans, and also where the jaw connects, because all of this is to accommodate this skull elongation. Now, this is all in the archaeological record about the skulling elongation.

I didn't know about this until I was reading the archaeological record. And consequently, of course, they tried to find evidence of headbinding, of headboards, of cradle binding, of this being artificial. This was a real quest for them to try to find evidence because they didn't want to accept that this was a genetic component of the giants. And consequently, they had to come to that conclusion because there's been no evidence of artificial cranial deformation. And the archaeologists have admitted that this was a genetic component of the giants. So they had cranial elongation. Wow, the academics actually admitted that. That's pretty wild.

Yes. And so it sounds like you're saying even the ancient native population, not the giant's were emulating the skull elongation, possibly themselves? Did you say they kind of had bumps on their? Yeah, it's believed that they were totally different people. So, which is very odd. I don't know. They don't know.

So they're very, for example, in this cave that's right across my house, it's called Kaneshito Cave, that's where they found a large portion of these bulbous, heart-shaped skull people. So the burial that was in this cave, for example, the giant is in a supine position in the center. And then out like spokes of a wheel are the average statured people with these bulbous skulls, another cranial deformation that is acknowledged in the archaeological record. At first they thought it was the weight of the sand. And on top of the, particularly, well, really, on top of the giant in the center was a huge,

huge slab of rectangular limestone. So they thought the weight of the limestone might have shifted the skulls. But once I found that it was occurring in multiple skeletal remains and they realized that, no, quite frankly, this was something that was particular to the people that were buried. And so there was no other research done on those people, on those skulls or how the skulls got that way. The fact is they never found any instances of, of what you would find during intentional deformation. So it's presumed that it was another natural component of these people who no one knows where they came from.

They were clearly archaic. They don't pop up again in the record. And so it's very strange. Now, I know that in South America, there have been skeletory remains of people with these bulbous skulls found in South America, Colombia, Peru, even in Florida, actually in the United States, they have been found. But I don't have any more research on it from the archaeological record. Boy, we're having a lot of fun. Time is flying. We're almost at a time.

A couple of questions I've got, I want to throw out you just before I forget. Sure. So, okay, a couple of questions and just answer these however you want. In your research, have you found anything about any of these giant skeletons possessing, you know, six fingers or extra digits. Has there been any humanoid like petroglyphs that may represent these strange entities? And three, what was my other one? Was there any drawings you've ever come across from Vespucci or old explorers that maybe drew something they saw? So there are no evidence in the archaeological record of six fingers, six toes, double rows of teeth.

There are petroglyphs that show, and the archaeologists note them as handprints, and they note them as four-fingered handprints, three-fingered handprints. There are no six-fingered handprints. I've looked as, I wanted to find them, of course, but sadly they're not here. I've also looked in Bonner. I've been in so many of the caves in Bonner. There's actually a cave called the Cave of Hands, and the entire cave is just coated in these okra colored handprints all over the cave but all have five fingers so sadly no there there haven't been now in terms of seeing a giant petroglyph there's very strange petroglyphs one of which is a very large petroglyph of what appears to me to be a woman she it's her it's her um her profile of her body she appears to have breasts and she also appears to be pregnant and that and i have found evidence that the giants

We're potentially a matriarchal society, which is also something that we do see globally. And so this petroglyph is very strange because it's so large. If you go to the National Park and you ask the park rangers, oh, can we see this petroglyph? They'll tell you, oh, no, no, it's impossible to get to it. It's so hard. You'll never get to. They don't even want to show you. Thankfully, I know people who can get me there.

You have to really bushwhack your way over there. And so this is a very odd petroglyph. The archaeologist noted her, and I call her her because I do believe she's female, as being called that which takes the sun from the sky. So I don't know much more about that. I am consequentially going to research whether or not this is aligned with some sort of celestial event. And so she is really, to me, one of the more intriguing ones. There's also a cave system that a lot of people don't know about, including the locals,

that has huge giant petroglyphs of humanoid figures that almost look like Bigfoot. And this is another component that I'm researching currently. It's very difficult to get to cave. The petroglyphs look like they're pristine because no one even knows about this place. And so that could be another connection to the giants. These were all believed to be archaic petroglyph sites. There are archaic petroglyph sites and there are more modern petroglyphs. sites. By more modern, I'm saying like 500 years. But these sites are thousands of years old.

So those two sites are the most intriguing about what the giants might have looked like, or even the work that the giants did by their own hands in painting these drawings on the stone. And finally, your last question was about, is there any artistic renditions? So there is a picture, and I can't, the artist's name escapes me. Sadly, it was done in the 1500s. It was an artist's rendition of Vespucci first coming to Aruba. I have it on my Facebook page, The Islands of the Giants. I have a picture of this, a picture of the picture.

And it was a drawing made of when they released in the newspaper about Vespucci's letters to the new world. This was actually one of their most. the people were most fascinated with Vespucci's stories about Aruba. And an artist did draw with Vespucci's guidance, a picture of Vespucci and his men coming up to these women. And the 36 men are in the background and the oceans in the background. His ship is in the background. And he is this little, and think about the ego of Vespucci, right? This was not a man who's going to cower in the back or be some sort of a simp.

This is a very strong man. I mean, he went across the ocean with, you know, no GPS, hardcore. And he allowed this drawing to occur. He is a diminutive person and his men are in the back. And then these giant people are in front of him. And it looks like an amicable exchange. And this was the precursor to what would then devolve into a very scary nightmare for him. So, yes, that is the only that I could find artist's rendition of Espucci and his encounter.

Wow. I mean, you could have quite the tour business, in my opinion, over there in Aruba. You could, because you also have Pirates of the Caribbean stuff you can do, right? So you could have this tour related to not only see the incredible beauty of this desert island, but learn the history of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, and by the way, the giants that once predated them. I mean, I'd stand up for that tour. Good, well, you never know. You never know.

We might have to do a Megalithic Marvels tour to Aruba. That would be wonderful. Heather, this has been a great interview, so glad we did it. And before we end, tell people how they can follow you, connect with you, and when can they expect to be able to purchase your book? So the book will be coming out next year. The Rubin people really want me to publish. it and I'm so thankful to them for pushing me to publish it here. So next year, the book will be

out. But in the meantime, they can keep in touch with me on Twitter or X, Facebook, Instagram. I'm Heather L. Arnold on all three. And I post regularly and often and I'm responsive to messages or any sort of communication. So if anyone has a question or anyone's doing their own research, feel free to contact me. I have tons and tons of photos on all of them, maps, all of my social media. So I'm hopeful that people will explore all of my research. Yeah, hey, well, I know I speak for many others when I say we're grateful for all the research you've done. And just that you've kept it alive early because unless somebody does their research and puts the blood, sweat, and tears in and pays the money like you've done, we just lose this history, right?

And so really exciting that you're not only doing the research, but you're putting out a book and maybe eventually a museum. And to me, the cherry on top would be if you could find those two skulls. Yes. Teacher, those in the museum, that would be epic. So, Heather, thank you so much. We look forward to that book coming out. And maybe when it does, we'll do another interview.

That would be wonderful, Derek. I would love that. Thank you so much for the honor of being on your. show.