Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

And here is one of those little news items you don’t see every day.  The “Wilmington Morning News,” August 5, 1947:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 (AP) A retired Ohio doctor has discovered relics of an ancient civilization, whose men were eight or nine feet tall, in the Colorado Desert, near the Arizona-Nevada-California line, an associate said today. 

Howard E. Hill of Los Angeles, speaking before the Transportation Club, disclosed that several well-preserved mummies were taken Sunday from caverns in an area roughly 180 miles square extending through much of southern Nevada from Death Valley, Calif., across the Colorado River Into Arizona. Hill said the discoverer is Dr. F. Bruce Russell, retired Cincinnati physician who came across the first of several tunnels in 1931, shortly after coming West and deciding to try mining for his health. Not until this year, however, did Dr. Russell go into the situation thoroughly. Hill told the luncheon. 

With Dr. Daniel S. Bovee of Los Angeles, who with his father helped open up New Mexico's cliff dwellings, Dr. Russell has found mummified remains together with implements of the civilization which Dr. Bovee had tentatively placed at about 80,000-year old. 

"These giants are clothed in garments consisting of a medium length jacket and trouser extending slightly below the knees," said Hill. "The texture of the material is said to resemble gray dyed sheepskin, but obviously it was taken from an animal unknown today." 

Hill said that in another cavern was found the ritual hall of the ancient people, together with devices and markings similar to those now used by the Masonic Order. In a long tunnel were well-preserved remains of animals, including elephants and tigers. So far. Hill added, no women have been found. He said the explorers believed that what they found was the burial place of the tribe’s hierarchy. Hieroglyphics, he added bear a resemblance to what is known of those from the Lost Continent of Atlantis, They are chiseled, he added on carefully-polished granite. 

He said Dr. Viola V. Pettit of London, who made excavations around Petra, on the Arabian Desert, shortly will begin an inspection of the remains.

You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that we heard no more of the matter from Mr. Hill, not to mention from Dr. Russell, Dr. Bovee, and Dr. Viola V. Pettit of London.

But I bet the members of the Transportation Club had an entertaining afternoon.