Bone Fraud: The Piltdown Man

It’s been over 175 years since the last few surviving members of the Donner Party reached civilization, and yet everyone still knows the story of how the desperate group resorted to cannibalism to survive. But did you know that one man was made into the villain of their story? Fo ... Show More

In 1888, Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of Whitechapel, England. Officially, he killed five women, brutally mutilating some of them beyond recognition. But perhaps the most unsettling part of his tale is how, to this day, we still don’t know his true identity. They say it’s ... Show More

If you’ve heard of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, you’ve surely heard the rumors about its famous owner, Sarah Winchester. Like the claims she was an eccentric hermit who never left her 24,000-square-foot mansion. Or that she demanded construction crews wor ... Show More

This episode is a mystery in the most classic literary sense of the word. It’s a whodunit detective story that spans more than a century - the saga of the Piltdown Man Hoax. From a gravel pit in Sussex, we follow the faked fossils through history, to what’s now the Natural Histor ... Show More

In Sussex, in 1912, men quarrying in a gravel pit near Piltdown village turned up a human skull. According to Charles Dawson, a lawyer and amateur archeologist with a remarkable track record for finding ancient treasures, it belonged to a palaeolithic man, possibly millions of ye ... Show More

Even expert primatologists can’t agree on whether Bigfoot exists. Is it all a hoax, or is the creature more intelligent — or cosmic — than we give it credit for? This episode originally aired on Conspiracy Theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho ... Show More

A newly-examined munch mark on a tibia has become a real pleistocene whodunit. By Natalia Raegan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

Did you know England's first newspaper was fake? Or that King Arthur is more or less completely made up? The deeper we look into human history, the more we see that civilization is utterly riddled with bizarre hoaxes -- some of which are laughable, and some of which are downright ... Show More

Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the halls of one of England's most elite universities — a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the making of the modern world.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection an ... Show More