Fact check: Image of 1993 dinosaur excavation altered to show giant human skull

Chiara Vercellone, USA TODAY
·3 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The claim: Image shows giant human skeleton excavation

An image claiming to show the excavation of a giant human skeleton has gone viral again almost a decade after it was originally posted.

The image shows a group of people in a desert setting, with skeletal remains around them. A giant human skull is at the center of the image, and one of the people near the skull is seen taking notes.

"Note: the man's foot is smaller than the giant's eyeball!" reads the caption, which says the picture was taken in Greece.

The image was posted on Facebook July 11, 2012, but it has recently caught the attention of users again, as many users started sharing it around September. The image accumulated more than 8,000 shares as of Oct. 13.

Fact check: Southwest Airlines, union deny rumor that pilot sickout caused flight delays

The image, however, has been altered.

The original version depicted the remains of a long-necked dinosaur, according to reports about the discovery. It did not include the human skull.

Fact check: Facebook outage caused by human error, not a military raid

USA TODAY reached out to the poster for comment.

Image shows dinosaur remains

The bones in the image are undoubtedly huge, but there's a simple explanation: They are from a dinosaur.

The image shows the skeleton of a 60-foot-long vegetarian dinosaur discovered during an expedition to Niger in Africa in 1993, according to an online gallery of expedition images published by the University of Chicago.

But there aren't any clearly visible remains under the blue square in the original photo – where the human skull is located in the Facebook version of the photo.

Fact check: Viral video falsely claims to show a man fleeing from COVID-19 vaccination

The expedition was under the leadership of Paul Sereno, a paleontologist and professor at the university. Sereno has carried out multiple dinosaur explorations across South America, Africa and Asia.

Multiple skeletons of the dinosaurs, called Jobaria tiguidensis in reference to legends from Niger's nomad population and a nearby cliff, were discovered during the excavation of the site, which Sereno said was a "mass-death site" in the Sahara.

The animals lived about 135 million years ago in the Cretaceous period, according to Sereno's press release.. The specimen is the most complete long-necked dinosaur discovered from its time.

In an email to Politifact, Sereno confirmed the image being shared online is an alteration of one he took during the Jobaria excavation in Niger in 1993. USA TODAY reached out to Sereno for comment.

Fact check: False claim that 'Shark Tank' judges endorsed a keto diet pill

The claim isn't the first of its kind. Since at least 2004, theories about excavated giant human skeletons have appeared on social media.

In June, USA TODAY debunked a false claim that a giant skeleton was found in Thailand. In reality, it was a man-made creation on display at an international exhibition of contemporary art.

And in September 2020, USA TODAY debunked an old hoax about thousands of giant skeletons being found and destroyed by the Smithsonian and the Vatican.

Our rating: Altered

A viral image that claims to show a giant human skull is ALTERED, based on our research. The original image being shared online actually showed remains of a dinosaur in Niger. Most remains pictured were real, except the human skull.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Image claiming to show giant human skull was altered