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In the summer of 1520, the Spanish expedition led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was well into its circumnavigation of the globe. By the time they reached the shores of Argentina, they had already encountered several native tribes. But there was something special about the natives of this land, and the account from Antonio Pigafetta, the voyage’s official chronicler, would capture the imaginations of Westerners for years to come. According to his journal, the natives of Patagonia, were giants.

Myths and legends of giants go back through every culture in every corner of the world. And in many cases, the mythological aspect of these giants is obvious. Take for example Atlas, the giant from Greek mythology who was tasked with holding the world on his shoulders.

But sometimes, the stories aren’t so heavily exaggerated and there is even evidence that giants did once walk the earth. In the 1800s, as European settlers continued to expand west across the United States they started coming across earthen mounds that had been constructed by native inhabitants of North America. The settlers started excavating the mounds with little regard for the native cultures who had built them for religious, ceremonial, and burial purposes.

And the sensational headlines regarding what was found in those mounds all reported one thing: Skeletons. Giant skeletons. But these weren’t just a few obscure papers, these were reputable sources like the New York Times and Scientific American. Even Abraham Lincoln references the giants in 1848 during a visit to Niagara Falls saying The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. According to the numerous articles published during this time the skeletons were regularly found to be between seven and ten feet tall. And some even reported taller individuals like the one mentioned in a New York Times article from 1885.