Megalithic Marvels - Spirit Cave Mummy: 10,000 Year Old Cover-Up?

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

"What do you think the international reaction would be to news that mummies were found in Egypt that predated the earliest ones ever discovered there by more than 5000 years? This would surely would be front page news from one end of the planet to the other! Yet news that a 10,000 year-old mummy was unearthed in America has elicited barely a whisper." - Richard DewhurstA long history of pre-columbian European and Asian contact is evidenced all over the continent as seen in the artifacts and discoveries such as the 10,000+ year old mummy from Spirit Cave in Nevada. This mummy is not only one of the oldest known mummies on the planet, but the original tests done on it by Smithsonian scientists found that it was of European origins. Why has the mainstream history community largely ignored this epic discovery? Why was this ancient specimen taken and buried, never to be seen or studied again? Was there a cover-up to hide this mummy due to its genetics?EGYPT, PERU, EASTER ISLAND, PETRA, ISRAEL - JOIN ME ON A 2026 TOUR

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. So in this episode, we are going to go down a rabbit trail that I am very excited about, and that is the Spirit Cave Mummy that was discovered in Nevada in 1940. And this mummy is estimated by someone to be 10,000 plus years old. In many ways, it has been rewriting history, yet it appears to me that there may have been and still is a cover-up concerning. this mysterious mummy. You are not going to want to miss this episode. But before we dive into these topics, just a quick reminder, please subscribe to this podcast from wherever you are watching, whether that's YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever. And while you're at it, like this video or episode. And again, so make sure to subscribe and on Spotify, please give me a five-star rating or review that really helps me break through the algorithms and climb the charts. And don't forget to check out megalithic marvels.com slash tours where you can see our lineup of 2026 tours on tap. We've got our tour to Israel and Petra this March. It's going to be

incredible. In May and June, we've got our tours to Peru and Easter Island. And then coming December, 2006, we have our Egypt tour, which is going to be awesome. the chain and we're likely going to be adding one more tour to the lineup for 2006 so check megalithic marvels.com slash tours or go to the link in the show notes below to be directed there. Now long before Columbus discovered America this land was thriving with ancient people and shall I say ancient humanoids as well, some of which were of gigantic size which I'm going to talk about later, some of which were described as hybrid or even chimeric type entities that had strange

horns and other anomalies, and some that were just anomalous because of their Caucasian-like features or super old age as documented by countless published reports like the New York Times going back to the 1800s. The Smithsonian also published all kinds of articles on stuff like I'm describing. And these discoveries back then before all the political correctness were considered pretty much normal, which is why they were constantly published in big-time newspapers, like the New York Times, like the Smithsonian, like the scientific American. Now, a long history of pre-Columbian, European, and Asian contact is evidenced all over the continent as seen in the artifacts. And again, the discoveries such as what's known as the mummy of Spirit Cave, which at minimum is dated to be

9,400 years old. But the latest dating is saying this thing's actually over 10,000 years old, like 10,700 years old, making the Spirit Cave mummy one of the oldest known mummies on planet earth. And yes, I'm guessing that many of you have never even heard of Spirit Cave mummy or Spirit Cave Man until now. So let me tell you all about him. Now, let me ask you a question. What do you think the international reaction would be to news that mummies were found in Egypt that predated the earliest mummies ever discovered there by more than five thousand? years. We all know this would be surely front page news from one end of the planet to the other, right? Yet the news that a 10,000-plus year old mummy was unearthed in America has elicited

barely a whisper. Now, this original discovery of the mummy was made in 1940, yet it's taken more than 60 years to fully start coming. to light. And a big reason for this is likely because the skeleton was never originally turned over to the Smithsonian, but it was kept instead by the Nevada State Museum. If it had been turned over to the Smithsonian, I would wager to say it would have conveniently disappeared, never to be seen again, it would have been lost. It would have never been able to be tested and dated. We wouldn't probably know about it today. But thank God, the Nevada State Museum kept onto it, and the rest is history, as they say. Now, there's a great book by Richard Dewhurst called

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America. And I'm going to read a couple excerpts from it for you regarding Spirit Cave Man and Richard says this. The original find in 1940 of two amazingly well-preserved mummies was made by Sydney and Georgia Wheeler, a husband and wife, archaeological team working for the Nevada State Parks Division, who were commissioned to study the archaeological effects that guano mining was having on any possible historical remains

to be found in the arid caves scattered across the Nevada wasteland. bats. Bat guano is mined because it contains salt pepper, which is used to make fertilizer and is the main ingredient of gunpowder. Let me pause and say that I've done several episodes before on the Lovelock Cave Giants. The Lovelock Cave artifacts and skeletons were actually found not far from this spirit cave mummy. And again, they were only found because people were in that cave mining out the bat guano or the bat dung to use for fertilizer and while they were doing so they started to find all these incredible artifacts in skeletons and so being that there were so many outfits back in the day of early 1900s scouring all these nevada caves for bat guano

the state of nevada was getting worried that they were going to lose precious artifacts which they were. So that's why they were sending Georgia and Sydney Wheeler out to caves that they figured miners hadn't been in yet to try to save whatever might have been in there before the caves got messed with. So that's what this Sydney and Georgia Wheeler are doing. So the site was appropriately called Spirit Cave and it's located about 13 miles east of Fallon, Nevada. Now in order to find the mummies and the 67 related artifacts associated with the burial, the wheelers had to dig through several feet of the guano droppings that covered the base of the cave and preserved what lay underneath. Let me just pause and say, do you know how bad bat guano smells? Having just been

in the ancient temples of Cambodia, there was bat guano everywhere because these temples are covered in bats. So these two human mummies they found were expertly wrapped in this highly sophisticated weaving made of tool matting that exhibited extremely fine nodding and hand weaving not thought to exist until thousands of years later. Because the mummies were sealed in this bat guano, the weaving are extremely well preserved, and they are arguably the greatest evidence of ancient weaving in the world, yet close to nothing is generally known about them. Now the male mummy was in better condition and was found lying on a flat blanket dressed in a twisted skin robe with leather moccasins on his feet and a twined mat sewn around its head and shoulders. A similar mat was wrapped

around the lower portion of the body and bound under the feet. The skin remained on the back and shoulders as well as a small tuft of straight dark hair, which changed to reddish brown when exposed to light and air. The age of the mummy was estimated at 45 years and its height well in excess of six feet. The original dig in 1940 was led by the wheelers with the help of local residents, and the two mummies, and again 67-related objects

were taken to the Nevada State Museum, where they were examined and dated, at that time between 1,500 and 2,000 years old. They were then transported to the museum's storage facility in Carson City and promptly forgotten about. In 1996, the mummies came to the attention of Irv Taylor, an anthropologist at the University of California Riverside, who decided that new breakthroughs in what's known as mass spectrometry dating could reveal the true age of the mummies, especially in light of the extremely good condition of the tool, diamond-plated mat wrappings,

and the excellent preservation of the mummified bones and associated assorted relics. One can only imagine Taylor's stunned reaction when the results came in. The mummies were dated to 9,400 years before the present in what is scientifically referred to as uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present. Yet instead of this momentous news, shattering the world of archaeology to its very roots, the Bureau of Land Management stepped into the breach and shut down all news of the discovery in 1997,

when it ruled in favor of acclaim by the Paiute Shoshone tribe of Fallon, Nevada, that the bones belong to them by rights of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, otherwise known as Nagpra, which I'll talk about in a minute. So although no DNA testing was allowed at the time of Taylor's dating, the Paiute Shoshone tribes claim held until pressure from the academic community forced the courts to reconsider the claims of the Bureau of Land Management related to the Indians' ancestral claims. Then in 2006, the courts overturned the findings of the Bureau, and the Paiute Shoshone tribes

and allowed DNA testing of the mummy by Douglas W. Owsley. Owsley was the division head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Richard L. Lance, an anthropology professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. The tests revealed that the mummy was of a Caucasian origin

with a long face and cranium that most closely resembled either Nordic or Ainu ancestry and bore no ancestral relationship to either the Paiute or Shoshone tribes. Now, although these findings were made public and extensively covered by the local media, this brown breaking news has received barely a glimmer of attention in the outside world. Now, in order to put this fine in its proper context, and understand other related and equally amazing finds in this part of the western United States, like the Lovelot cave artifacts and skeletons, it's imperative that we reconstruct the local topography of this area

as it existed some 10,000 years ago. As Richard states, although this knowledge should be commonplace to most school children, the true map of ancient America remains a complete mystery to most all of its citizens. As it turns out, much like the Sahara region prior to 6,000 BC, the Western United States, prior to the gigantic Lassen volcanic explosion, posited at sometime around 5,000 BC, was home to one of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world and contained a lush biodiversity that one geologist has characterized as abundant in every respect,

perhaps the lushest in the world at the time. with every kind of plant and animal necessary for human life. The area of this ancient lake was immense, covering approximately 8,500 square miles in the northeast section of Nevada, bordering on California and Oregon. Its name is Lake Lahantan. And at its peak, around 11,000 years ago, it was almost 1,000 feet deep in places and was fed by the Humboldt Walker Truckee and Carson River system. remnants of this dried out lake can be seen at Pyramid Lake,

Lake Russell, and Lake Tahoe. At its peak, the lake's resting waterline was at approximately 5,200 feet, and consequently, many of the finds around its ancient shoreline are found at least at that height. So the point here is that when we understand that these desert regions were once home to abundant life, that was thriving with lush rivers and giant lakes, the other related prehistoric archaeological finds in this area

become understandable and even expected as we are no longer looking at an isolated desert remains devoid of logic and contextual understanding. This is why the Lovelock Cave artifacts featured these incredible elaborate duck decoys that are the most elaborate on earth. I believe on display at the Smithsonian in New York City and they were found in Lovelock Cave not far from Spirit Cave these elaborate duck decoys because the

ancients were a part of this thriving lush culture. Okay back to Spirit Cave man or mummy so he's found in 1940 wearing these incredible moccasins on his feet his body's wrapped in this rabbit-skin blanket covered with Reed Matt And when you look into the history, Spirit Cave Mummy was paraded at the Nevada State Fair the following summer before being handed over to the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, where he was literally forgotten about until the 1990s rolled around. And again, Spirit Cave Mummy was dated at a minimum to be 9,400 years old. Now at this point, representatives from this fallen Paiute Shoshone tribe request that the body be returned right to Spirit Cave under this Nagpra repatriation act.

They were identifying the mummy as an ancestor whom they called the storyteller. And tribal leaders claimed a direct genealogical connection to this ancient individual known as a Spirit Cave mummy or Spirit Cave Man. Now let me stop for a minute and talk to you about NAGPRA. Again, that's the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Now, let me pause for a moment and talk about NAGPRA. Nagpra, N-A-G-P-R-A stands for Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This is a law that was passed in 1990, and I've actually covered this on some other episodes.

When you look at this law in a nutshell, this law basically states that any ancient specimen that was or is found in the United States of America is essentially Native American and should be removed from public display and buried according to the traditions of the individual tribes. Now let me say clearly and emphatically, the Native Americans are the First Nation people. they have an amazing history. They are an amazing culture. And any specimen found that is genetically there should 100% be repatriated back to them. However, at the same time, there seems to be a myriad of ancient skeletons

and specimens found that genetically don't seem to be related to them. Some of you may have heard about what's known as Kennewickman, and I'm going to do future episodes on him. And there's been so much controversy surrounding Kennewickman that was discovered in Washington State, where a lot of the research and data and DNA says it's not related to the Native American tribes. And then again, we've got Spirit Cave Mummy. We've got the Lovelot Cave Schools who last I heard were hidden in the back room of the Humboldt State Museum in Nevada, and the curator of the museum even said, yes, these are not on public display because the state does not recognize their legitimacy, and that's because they're not related to the

payutes of Nevada. The point is, we've got a lot of these kind of examples. And again, it's not me saying this. This is archaeologists and scientists like Owsley from the Smithsonian who said Spirit Caveman was not related to the Paiutes, right? So we have these examples from archaeologists themselves who state these specimens are not Native American, therefore they should not disappear from public display, yet because of this NAGPRA law, that's always what seems to eventually happen.

At some point there's another DNA test that's done that says, actually this is kind of related to the Native Americans, and guess what happens? Immediately the skull or specimens are grabbed, and they're disappeared never to be seen of again. So many theorize that there seems to be a deliberate plan to hide anything that's discovered that doesn't fit into the standard theory that Native Americans cross the Bering Strait and settled here. And it's basically forbidden to talk about or look into artifacts that people believe might have predated the Native Americans in North America. So again, the local Shoshone, Paiute tribe requested that the body of spirit man be returned under the Nagpah laws.

But the Bureau of Land Management surprisingly refused to comply for a while based on the findings that the skeleton was not essentially Native American. And this went on for two decades until the Fallon Paiuchaschishoni tribe kept arguing your case, eventually winning the legal battle in 2018. When the Spirit Cave Mummy's DNA was analyzed again by a scientist named Professor Eski Wilslev, who worked with the University of Copenhagen. Now, I ran out of time to really dive deep into the first. all of his DNA results, but apparently they showed an unbroken genetic lineage linking the mummy with not only present-day Native Americans, but South Americans as well. So there was still a lot of

new confusion that came out of his new DNA study. But because he linked the Spirit Cave mummy to Native American ancestry, guess what happened next? The controversial mummy was immediately disappeared. It was immediately repatriated back to the Shoshone-Payut tribe, closing a quote, seven decades long legal dispute with anthropologists who fought for it to remain on display in a museum. Now, what's interesting to me when I looked deeper into this is that this professor Willerslev himself attended the reburial of the mummy. And here's what he told the reporters, quote, it involved people crying, singing, and praying as the mummy was put inside a casket and offered farewell gifts. The event was simply.

similar, if you and I were burying a very close relative, it's that emotional, even though we are burying a mummy that was living 10,000 years ago, end quote. Now, I have no problems with emotions at a funeral and reburrying a skeleton. I get all that. What I find interesting and where the critical sat in my brain kind of starts to let off some red alerts is that this professor's, is at the funeral to repatriate this mummy right after his supposed analysis proved that it was linked to the Native Americans, which triggered the legal battle for them to get it and bury it. I just find it interesting that this guy is so into this that he's flying from Copenhagen to the middle of nowhere in Nevada to be a part of this burial. It just, it seems all so

convenient to me and interesting. I'm trying to be careful if you know what I'm saying here. I think this next statement by this mainstream scientific publication sums up perfectly what I'm trying to say I feel might have been going on here. This mainstream publication states this Quote, the bearing of this skeleton marks the end to what have been deemed outlandish claims and puts to bed arguments that indigenous groups often fight for repatriation of remains in order to gain a political voice. Again, am I the only one that thinks it kind of seems odd or all too convenient that after we had the 1990s test results from the Smithsonian,

scientist himself, Douglas Owsley, that this ancient mummy was not only 9,400 plus years old, but had Caucasian origins. Does anybody else find it interesting that all of a sudden in 2018, we have this other guy come along with different DNA results? Okay, so all of this led me to do some deeper digging into the original 1996 pathology report and tests by R.L. Jance and Douglas W. Aousley, the scientist who worked for the Smithsonian Institute. And here's the biggest takeaways, as I read through the entire 25-page article. I'm giving you literally verbatim the interesting parts that jump out to me that you're not going to

hear in any mainstream article. And all of these, by the way, are direct quotes from the report. I'm literally reading from it. Quote, The Spirit Cave Mummy was examined by scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in the University of Tennessee as part of a systematic survey of the human skeletal collection curated

by the Nevada State Museum. The hair is medium brown in color with reddish tones. Let me pause there, okay? So we just learned that this thing had reddish-colored hair. Interesting. I continue, quote, Some of the longer strands are 150 to 198 millimeters long,

indicating that it was at least shoulder length. Some of the hair was cut angularly, which suggests that some type of blade was used to groom the hair. It continues, quote, the cranial vault is long and narrow with a moderate vault height. Let me pause there and say this. Now, if you're watching on video, via YouTube or Spotify, you've seen all kinds of photos or drawings of the Spirit Cave Mummy.

But what do you notice? Nowhere do you see a real old vintage photo of the skull, nowhere that I can find, even though, as we're going to read, that the skull was in incredible shape. Why can't we see the skull? Why can't you find any? photos of the skull. I want to see the skull. Does anybody else want to see the skull? The only picture we have of Spirit Cave Mummy, it's conveniently covered over with that read mat. But as we're learning right here from this 1990s report, the cranial vault is long and narrow with a moderate vault height. It continues, quote, the brow ridges are only moderately developed. and the frontal bone is long and curved.

The height of the face is relatively short and is fairly gracile. I think that's how you pronounce that word, especially considering the large size of the skull. End quote. It continues. At the time of his death, this individual was recovering from an injury to the left temple that is evidenced by a circular impact sight. Another unusual anomaly of the spinal column,

is the presence of the 13th thoracic vertebrae instead of the usual 12. Okay, let's pause there. I think we got something here. I don't know about you, but to me this is saying this guy has an extra rib or an extra vertebrae. He's got not 12, he's got 13. Again, very interesting that we can't get a shot or photo of the, the vertebrae. Again, all we see is this body, this mummy covered in a reed mat. It continues, quote, the Spirit Cave male classifies as anew on these 12 variables.

Groups with high scores are Polynesians and East Asians, including Anu. The Spirit Cave male is clearly aligned with this last group of populations and not with American Indians. Like Indians, the Spirit Cave Cranium does not have a flat frontal configuration. It is most similar to East Asian and Europeans in this regard, end quote. Okay, so is this part of the tale? Is this why we're not allowed to see the skull? This literally says, quote, unlike Indians, the Spirit Cave Cranium does not have a flat frontal configuration. Is this why they don't want us to see the skull? Is this why you're not? you can't find any photos of the skull. And by the way, if you do find photos of the skull, please let me know because using AI and using, you know, the powerful Google image search tools that I use, I can't find it.

Okay, a couple more quotes here. It continues concerning the facial forwardness. It says, quote, the two closest groups related to the skeleton are both European, but Norse has a much higher posterior probability than any other group. Regarding the face, height, breadth, and projection, it says this, quote, the Spirit Cave male clearly has a very strong European resemblance on the facial variables. It continues, quote, the excellent quality of the preservation of the head, parts of the body,

and the artifacts was recognized even then. It's talking about 1940. It continues, quote, the remains were exhibited at the Nevada State Fair for three days, a few weeks after excavation. Over time, Spirit Cave Man's remains were placed in a wooden box, covered with naphthalene crystals, and stored in the general collections area of the Nevada State Museum.

It seems that, other than the pre-liminary report published by SM and Georgia Wheeler, little to know research was performed on the mummy until it was carbon-dated in 1994. So now you know everything that I know about the infamous spirit cave mummy man. This thing was discovered in Nevada in an incredible cave in 1940. In fact, I'm going to try. It's on my bucket list to go find this cave. I've been to Lovelock Cave.

I want to go to Spirit Cave. So what do you think? Do you smell a cover up? Do you think Spirit Cave Man predated the Native Americans was of a more Caucasian origin? I mean, everybody agrees that this guy is at least 9,400 years old. But what do you think about the latest DNA test that came out in 2018, which then triggered the legal battle back to the tribe which triggered the repatriation which re-triggered the burial now spirit cave mummy is disappeared never to be seen again and again

am i the only one that finds it odd that you can't find a photo that features the skull of this specimen this incredible specimen or the ribs i want to see the 13 ribs um anybody think there's a cover up here, leave me a comment on YouTube or Spotify and let me know what you think. Well, I hope you really enjoyed this episode. A quick reminder to subscribe to this show again from wherever you're watching. Give me a five-star rating on Spotify. Go to megalithicmarvels.com slash tours and check out the lineup of incredible tours for 2006 that are coming up. This March we are going on our Holy Land Tour of Israel and Petra. It's going to be off. the chain amazing we're not only going to see the must-see Bible sites but we're

going to go off trail and find ancient sites associated with the Nephilim we're going to go under the western wall tunnels and see the megalithic walls then we're going to go to Petra and see what I believe was a rock city made with lost technology then in May we've got our Peru and Easter Island tours this is going to be the best Peru and Easter Island tours we've ever done So don't miss it. And we've got a couple special surprises on this tour. And then coming in December of 2006, early December, starting December 1st, we have our Egypt tour with renowned Egyptologist and author, Mohamed Ibrahim, who has really broken with the mainstream and is in the alternative history camp.

He believes the pyramids were made by a lost civilization, at least 12,000 plus years ago. So go to megalithicmarvels.com slash tours to learn all about these tours, to see the itinerary, and to lock in some of the early bird discounts we still have available. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with a few friends. If you enjoyed this, send them the YouTube link, send them the Spotify link. And until next time, keep exploring.