Pedro – The mysterious tiny mummy from the mountains in Wyoming

Back in 1932, two prospectors – Cecil Mayne and Frank Carr – were digging for gold in the San Pedro Mountains in Wyoming when they came across a sealed cave on a rock ledge 50 centimeters from the ground.

Hoping to find gold, Mayne and Carr used explosives to blast through the thick rock at its entrance.

Instead of gold, inside a small room, there was a mummy of a tiny, old man with brown and wrinkled skin and crossed arms and legs, only 16,5 centimeters tall. Its origins remained a mystery.

Native American “Little People” from Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children by Mabel Powers, 1917

 

Only the stories from the Local Native American tribes folklore could be related to the tiny mummy. In their stories, there are small people with magical powers or healing powers.

There are also the legends among these tribes about “Nimirega” – “tiny people” or “little spirits”.

Somewhere the folklore differs and these “tiny people” are described as an enemy of the Native Americans who attacked them with poisoned arrows.

Little people from Stories Iroquois Tell Their Children by Mabel Powers, 1917

The tiny mummy was nicknamed Pedro, and Pedro attracted a lot of media and public attention.

Scientists wanted to study him, some people were convinced that he is one of the tiny Native American people, and skeptics wanted to prove that the whole story was a hoax.

“How Morning Star Lost Her Fish”, from Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children by Mabel Powers, 1917

Pedro was greatly preserved with a gelatinous substance that covered his head, his teeth all in place and even his fingernails visible.

Research showed that liquids were used for the preservation of his body. The first impression of Pedro was that it is a mummy of a very old, tiny person.

However, he was examined with X-rays which revealed  that the mummy wasn’t a body of an old person at all.

It was an anencephalic infant, meaning that the body was missing a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp.

Photos and X-ray of the mummy

 

After being studied, the mummy ended up in a local drug store, where it was exhibited as an attraction for a few years.

Then, a businessman from Wyoming, Ivan T. Goodman, bought the mummy.

Then it was passed to a New York businessman, Leonard Wadler, and ever since the location of the mummy remains unknown.

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There was a reward of a $10,000 offered for the mummy by someone who was seeking to prove the theory of evolution wrong, but no further information about it had been revealed.