1919 Jackson, Michigan giant

reply to post by coredrill


However, acccording to the 1930 US Census, there was an Oren Nierman living in Jackson, Michigan:

Name: Oren Nierman
Event: Census
Event Date: 1930
Event Place: Leoni, Jackson, Michigan
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Birthplace: Indiana
Estimated Birth Year: 1884

FamilySearch.org Source

reply to post by Shadow Herder


In the context of the entire page, it does not look out of place or as if it was plunked in the middle of the want ads. The font and font size is completely consistent with all of the typesetting surrounding it.

If you didn't bother to check out the entire page before making your judgment, here it is:

Border Cities Star September 6 1919

LOL- There wasnt any Paper I am aware of called the "Border City Star" (and Jackson is not a "border city" )

Our major newspaper which has been here since the start is called the "Citizen patriot"... I will actually be going out that way today and will ask if there has ever been a Paper here by that name and will get back to you.

-We have a TON of local legend and Lore from here and the Irish Hills area and I would imagine this would be a part of our "lore" if it was ever reported. LOTS of crazy stuff in this area, but no giants of which I am aware.

This isnt from Jackson- Looks like its a canadian paper...Even the streets/roads listed are not here (upon examination) but there was/is a Border Cities Star from Windsor which may be what this is...

Okay..I see. This is the Windsor Paper which is "running a story?" about Jackson... Well, I can EASILY see if this is true based on the dates as I pay for the MLIVE Archives of the Cit Pat which is our only Newspaper and I can cross reference the time listed.

I say fraud. Again, we are an OLD city with lots of lore and legends, and this surely would be one of them.
EDIT: Well, that was quick. I searched the Citizen patriot archives and there is nothing at all, remotely close listed which was reported in Jackson, Mi... And that would have been pretty big news I would imagine.

I am not saying its a hoax on the Ops end and the paper may have reported that, but here in Jackson our Newspaper was totally unaware.


EDIT 2:www.mlive.com... the archives are here from 1865 (but you have to subscribe)- sadly, the paper is now "mostly" digital and quite horrible now but once was a great paper. If you guys do not believe me that there is NOTHING close, just shoot one of the contact people an email with this link as I am sure they will get a pretty good laugh out of it and will probably verify for you what I just looked up.

Originally posted by GoneGrey
reply to post by Shadow Herder

 

In the context of the entire page, it does not look out of place or as if it was plunked in the middle of the want ads. The font and font size is completely consistent with all of the typesetting surrounding it.

If you didn't bother to check out the entire page before making your judgment, here it is:

Border Cities Star September 6 1919

actually the paper that your link leads to has the same date and name but the contents of the paper is completely different .

on page 26 in the "Star want ads too late to classify" section all the ads are different and there is no story about a 12 foot man.

reply to post by Tardacus


Scroll across to page 16 and there it is.

We have (in the area) haunted Houses, Haunted Graveyards, an Old Underground hideout for Al Capone made with cement trees (which look real) concealing Chimneys, Black panthers, an old Cement plant which was a hub of Satanic activity (now destroyed),Ancient stone Monuments, Indian burial grounds, and far too much to even list.

MANY books about the area delve into our lore (especially the Irish Hills) and Anton Levay even stated in a lecture at MSU that "the Irish Hills was the most haunted place he had ever seen".

We have some very horrific and odd murders (most recently an Ax murder/decapatation in a very populated apartment building where nobody heard a thing including the door being axed down- The murderer claimed he was killing a 'witch") and a Restaurant Owner who murdered his wife and (probably) fed her to patrons.

-We also invented the republican party and the Coney Dog (really...)

But no giants. =(

The coverage of this find just gets more weird...

While searching for evidence of coverage in other publications, I found this article in a paper from Ohio which suggest that the 'body' was subjected to the 1919 version of forensic analysis and deemed to be "genuine" by the doctors performing this examination:



Source:
Youngstown Vindicator



Then, I discover this disclaimer in a Ludington Daily News [Michigan] article that claims the find was a "dummy". Shades of Roswell! :



Source (scroll to page 6 and look under "Michigan Briefs"):
Ludington Daily News

I wonder how the 'doctors' failed to detect that this was a dummy?

-Hmmm- discount my last post. I made a terrible mistake. I thought it was from 1909 not 1919 . Let me get back to the Archives in Jackson and recheck. I do not have time atm (have to leave) but I will as soon as I get home.

-My bad for misreading the year.
EDIT: Nope. Aug 31st 1919 (the most recent issue to the story) says nothing about this. I got to run, actually going Downtown by the Cit Pat and will see what I can find out.

The type face of the article is different from the want ads in the columns to the right of the article, however, it is identical to the articles in the columns to the left.

The article is real (actually printed in 1919), but the information is false. I think there was a great deal of exaggeration or it's all together a complete fabrication. Like I said, "yellow journalism", it was made up for a sensational story to tell. It sold papers when the news was dull.

reply to post by Tardacus


In fact there is.

the below image is a screen shot of the newspaper from Google news Archives



The article says exactly the same "Body of Giant is found in Michigan"

But as you said, it is fishy since it appears in the Ads section of the newspaper and didn't get a headline since it could have been an important discovery.

Journalism of those days were about sensationalism and not real news.

Originally posted by DarKPenguiN
We have (in the area) haunted Houses, Haunted Graveyards, an Old Underground hideout for Al Capone made with cement trees (which look real) concealing Chimneys, Black panthers, an old Cement plant which was a hub of Satanic activity (now destroyed),Ancient stone Monuments, Indian burial grounds, and far too much to even list.

MANY books about the area delve into our lore (especially the Irish Hills) and Anton Levay even stated in a lecture at MSU that "the Irish Hills was the most haunted place he had ever seen".

We have some very horrific and odd murders (most recently an Ax murder/decapatation in a very populated apartment building where nobody heard a thing including the door being axed down- The murderer claimed he was killing a 'witch") and a Restaurant Owner who murdered his wife and (probably) fed her to patrons.

-We also invented the republican party and the Coney Dog (really...)

But no giants. =(

edit on 17-3-2013 by DarKPenguiN because: (no reason given)

I had no idea all of that occurred in Windsor! Kind of makes me wish I had gone there for university when I was accepted as opposed to Western. Lol

reply to post by MichiganSwampBuck


What is interesting is that the Youngstown Vindicator coverage of it (see my post above) lists the Associated Press as its source.

I'm not suggesting that AP is, or ever was, above "yellow journalism", but it appears that this story was circulating outside of Jackson, Michigan.

It's hit and miss finding other sources of coverage, so I hope someone is able to access a local paper that goes into more detail and can reconcile the physicians' inability to differentiate a real corpse from that of a dummy.

Kudos to the other articles (even tho it seems too early, more kudos for confession).

The best I could do seems that Mastadons were found all over the place in Micigan in the late 1800's & early 1900's. Mastadon

I am going to point out that these dates also coincide with museums worldwide exploding wih fossils, most of which are claiming to be animals that have long since been scrambled in other animals. This is also the time frame when the Ringling Brothers were traveling all over the eastern part of the States.Wiki-Ringling Brothers

It may have been hoaxed anytime in the last 100 years. Could be one of those "men were never that tall, so it doesn't exist" Board of Museum Directors decisions too.

reply to post by rimjaja


This poster was not referring to the City of Windsor.

Closest thing that city comes in matching such a colourful/mysterious past is the Peeping Tom in the women's dorm at the university you wish you had attended.

Originally posted by MichiganSwampBuck
Great find!

I wonder if it was found near some Hopewell Indian mounds?

Sounds like another one of those red-haired giants from some of those 1800s "yellow journalism" articles.

edit on 16-3-2013 by MichiganSwampBuck because: finished last sentence

I've read quite a bit on those red haired giants. It seems that they may have been real. It seems that they were usually not a threat to the Indians but they could get cranky once in a while if the young Indians provoked them. Something happened between them and the Indians and the Giants disappeared, possibly a war of some kind.

The line of Dan had red hair. It actually fits into the Vikings being here. Maybe earlier than we know.

Seems like that area in lower Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana may have had a lot of Giants around. I was comparing the areas where remains were found from this site. gianthumanskeletons.blogspot.com...

reply to post by GoneGrey


Yes there are news reports like these all over the place but most of the time the mummy's are
never seen.That's such a short report on something so amazing!Two feet down isn't that far
down though.Yes there are tall humans but this one was said to be 12 foot tall and a mummy.
It doesn't sound like a normal find to me.The question is who came and got the body???

An old newspaper article regarding giants -->

Google "this guy was 15 feet tall"

Another one -->

Google "anybody see a 24-foot giant"

reply to post by Mumbotron


Did you not just see that photo posted above your comment ? It is possible.

reply to post by coredrill


It doesn't appear to me to be 'in' the ads section in any obvious way. Right below it is another news article as is everything to the left of it. If you are familiar with newspapers from that era, you will note that filling of all spaces in whatever manner is necessary is the norm. We are so accustomed to seeing well-defined sections, columns and segregation of news material by genre that we lose the fact that this was 1919 typesetting and publishing technology at work here.

I don't think that anyone seeing these articles today is in a position to definitively claim that they are fabrications or exaggerations any more than they are truthful coverage of a discovery in a back yard. This is simply an account that I found by pure chance while doing a genealogical search for an obit. It is not an account of a 'giant' discovery that I had ever come across before and thought it of interest to ATS members and worthy of discussion and follow-up.

My original intent of posting this find, of which I am making no claims about giants one way or the other, is to find out more about this particular incident and the follow-up to it. Even if this article is "yellow journalism", a great number of questions remain and continue to crop up:

1. Why/how did the physicians so grossly misidentify what this mummified body was upon initial inspection? It sounds like more than one physician was involved in its examination.

2. Oren Nierman in Jackson, MI, as a person, was not a fabrication. The census proves this. Why was this corpse in the rear yard of a local patrolman? Did he have a role in this?

3. How did an ex-con plant a corpse in a patrolman's rear yard without his knowledge?. Is this version true, or is it a hasty cover-up story a la Roswell because the find did not 'fit' with the science of the day and challenged conventional thought?

4. What was the ultimate fate of this corpse/mummy/giant/dummy after the exhumation and examination?