Is This the Martindale, California Nephilim Mummy?
Tracking the history of the mummy is difficult, but this is the fragmented timeline I have been able to put together. Smiths are photographed with the mummy in the late 1960s.
The original find was described in the 19th century: The giant mummy was not an isolated find. In 1885 in California's Yosemite Valley, A party of miners headed by Mr. G. F. Martindale noticed a wall of stones on a rock face that did not appear to be of natural origin. As they removed the rock wall, they came upon another stone wall that was described as being done by someone skilled in Masonry. They described the joints between the rocks as being a uniform 1/8 of an inch in thickness. "As pretty as any wall on any building I have ever seen,” is how one of the miners described it. Upon entering the stone walled tomb, they discovered a large mummified corpse placed on a carved ledge in the cave. The mummified remains were that of a woman who measured 6 feet, 8 inches in length. The corpse was wrapped in what appeared to be animal skins. The miners removed parts of the animal skins to view the corpse and found it to be that of a woman holding a child to her breast.
At an unknown date the mummy is placed in the State Historical Society Museum in Topeka, Kansas.
1940's - Smith said he purchased the mummies from a Mrs. Miller in Kansas and leased them to a guy named, Fleming who owned a traveling carnival.
1940s Fleming is known to have the mummy until at least 1948.
1968 – After being missing for over 20 years the mummy resurfaces in a warehouse in Texas where it is reclaimed by the Smith family.
1992 – Smith's health is failing and a Dr. Cartmel purchaes the mummy where it is later sold the the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in Orlando, Florida in 1998.
There are various stories of how the mummy ended up in Arizona. They are all based on the fact that the mummy is a hoax. But, it has to be a hoax or the NAGPRA laws would snatch it up and it would never be seen again.
