Randall Floyd is a freelance write living in Augusta.FILE/STAFF

Remains may be from old civilization

Web posted January 17, 1999

By Randall Floyd
Columnist

Late one afternoon in October 1932, two gold prospectors working a ravine in the San Pedro Mountains near Casper, Wyo., unearthed the mummified remains of a two-legged monster.

Or was it human?

The corpse was small and shriveled, less than 14 inches in height, with bulging, buglike eyes, a barrel-shaped body and a flat head. The skin was loose and wrinkled, its nose was broad and flat, and its mouth was wide with thin lips.

The top of its head was covered in a dark, gelatinous substance, eclipsing all but a fringe of hair around its edge.

The prospectors took the curiosity back to Casper and put it on display. A car dealer, Ivan Goodman, eventually bought ``Pedro,'' as the mummy came to be known, thinking it would be a good investment.

Most scientists dismissed Pedro as a hoax. But an X-ray analysis convinced Henry Shapiro, an anthropologist with the American Museum of Natural History, that the mummy was real. According to Dr. Shapiro's report, Pedro possessed an ``irrefutably manlike skeleton, despite its tiny stature.'' It also exhibited a complete set of ribs, fully formed arms and legs with all bones readily discernible, a backbone that had once been perfectly formed but which had subsequently suffered an injury, and also a fractured left collarbone.

``It seems as if this little person met its death through some violent attack, accounting not only for those injuries but also for its flattened head and the dark gelatinous substance covering its head,'' Dr. Shapiro said.

The skull had been smashed by an extremely heavy blow, and the dark substance was exposed brain tissue and congealed blood.

Dr. Shapiro thought Pedro was either a fetus or small child, perhaps sacrified for religious purposes. That theory was discarded, however, when a full set of teeth were found inside his mouth, an indication that the mummy was a full-grown adult. Pedro's morphology -- internally and externally -- indicated that he was at least 65 years old when he died.

Dr. Shapiro conjectured that Pedro had lived far back in history.

In 1950, Mr. Goodman died and Pedro became the property of Leonard Wadler. Interest in the mummy gradually waned, and today its whereabouts are unknown. But in 1979 Pedro's X-rays were shown to University of Wyoming anthropologist George Gill, who announced that it had probably been a grossly malformed infant or fetus suffering from anencephaly -- a severe condition in which most of the cranium and brain have failed to develop. Sometimes, moreover, the portion of brain that has formed is exposed, with no protective bony covering.

This could account for Pedro's flattened head and its covering of congealed blood and brain tissues, according to Dr. Karl Shuker, a British scientist who has written extensively about Pedro.

But Dr. Shuker said anencephaly cannot explain Pedro's adult features and dentition.

Dr. Gill theorized that Pedro may have belonged to a race of prehistoric native American people.

Many Indian legends hold that America was once home to an aggressive, warlike race of pygmies or ``Little People'' whose descriptions closely tally with Pedro. The Shoshone who once lived in the Wyoming region told stories about the Nimerigar, pygmy-like warriors who attacked with tiny bows that shot poisoned arrows. According to some traditions, these pygmies even kill their own kind when they become ill, by beheading them or smashing their skulls, as was the case with Pedro.

E. Randall Floyd can be reached at Rfloyd2aol.com.