Our fairy tales and legends are awash with stories of giants, mythical races of giant men and women that once roamed the world. Most major civilizations have stories about giants from ancient Greece to modern America.

The first giants I remember would be in Greek mythology. They were the children of Uranus and Gaea and are more familiar to us as the Titans and the Cyclops and the lesser known Hekatonkheires. There is evidence of statues throughout the remains of the Roman Empires referred to as Jupiter columns, which depict the god defeating a giant. These are two examples of the many cultures that have described giants in their histories.In Jewish history, the giants are mentioned throughout the Old Testament. The first mention is of the Nephilim in Genesis who were supposedly the children of the fallen angels and the women of Earth. Unlike the movie "Noah" released earlier this year, the Bible stated that God unleashed the flood to destroy the Nephilim because of the evil they perpetrated on humanity. Even though the flood was supposed to have destroyed them, other stories after the flood talk about giants on the Earth. The most famous giant is Goliath, who was slain by David after the Philistines challenged the Hebrews to produce a champion.Native American mythology also has stories of giants, including one which explained how the deserts were formed in America as a punishment for a race of beautiful giants who ridiculed and ostracized a disfigured child.There is a controversial book called "The Suppressed History of America: The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysterious Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition" which discusses the possible evidence that was found of giants living in the western United States as well as a European-appearing group of fair-skinned Native Americans.In this book, the author proposes that after the expedition, the government took great steps to hide from the public the true discoveries of Lewis and Clark, even to the extreme of murdering Lewis years afterward.Lewis was governor of the Louisiana Territory and was returning from Washington, D.C., where he had gone to deal with denied draft payments. He stopped in at an inn along Natchez Trace, a road between Mississippi and Tennessee, for the night. He was agitated and unnerving to the innkeeper's wife, who felt like he was preoccupied. When he retired for the night, the wife said she could hear him talking at length to himself and then several shots broke the silence of the night.The servants went to investigate and found Lewis dying of gunshot wounds to the head and gut. One newspaper also reported his throat was slit. The author of the book I mentioned claims the murder was done to cover the theft of Lewis' private journals, which exposed giants and the fair-skinned Native Americans, among other discoveries.Another account was the case of Professor S.A. Jordan, who in a Smithsonian-sponsored 1909 expedition found evidence of North American giants in a cave over a thousand feet above the floor of the Grand Canyon. Supposedly Jordan found large chambers and burial cavities in which were entombed giants. He returned to report his findings to the Smithsonian and allegedly raised funding for a more thorough academic expedition, yet when he returned to the Grand Canyon, he found the area cordoned off by the Army. He was never able to gain access to the chambers again.These are only a few of the accounts of giants that exist throughout cultures and civilizations all over the planet. Many would like to believe these are just stories made up to entertain children and scare each other around the world.Yet I would have to wonder if there is not a kernel of truth in all of this speculation and storytelling. Unfortunately these stories are all missing one critical item that would transform them into history: Evidence. For all the accounts of giants, no one has unearthed scientifically acceptable proof of them.There have been bones unearthed from time to time, but no scientist or archaeologist has been willing to vouch for them as proof of giants. Many of the bones that would be evidence have disintegrated or been reburied as mandated by the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. Some evidence does exist but has not been accepted by scientists as proof even though they do admit they are strange. This includes bones found in two ancient burial grounds in France, as well as an apocryphal fossilized set of remains found in a Nevada Cave.Now on the History Channel, amateur archaeologist Jim Vieira and his brother are chasing evidence and accounts of giants across the country, hoping to finally find the proof they believe exists that giants once inhabited the world. This series looks at the stories of giants and chronicles Vieira's search. Maybe he will finally find the proof that will rewrite history.Then again … maybe not.Till next time …