Whispers of the Stones and The Intriguing Mystery of the Pedro Mummy
When I was living in Laramie , Wyoming Shirley Basin
There’s
no question that the Pedro Mummy actually existed. It became an object of curiosity and
scientific speculation until its disappearance in the 1950s. It was not a fake.
Uhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/The_San_Pedro_Mountain_Mummy.jpgnknown
(Life time: 1936) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The curious little mummy, which was soon nicknamed “Pedro”
because he was found in the Pedro
Mountains Casper . In the care of Ivan Goodman in the 1950s, the
mummy was examined and X-rayed. It was found the mummy had a definite human rib-cage.
At the time of the Pedro Mummy’s discovery, it was thought to be the remains of a tiny, ancient little man in his late sixties. Many people believed that the discovery of the
tiny mummy might be proof that the “Little People” of Native American legends
actually existed. The “Little People”
are part of the legends and folklore of the Shoshoni, Arapahoe. and many other
tribes. In some tales the tiny men, who
remain hidden in caverns and deep in the mountains, are good-natured
tricksters, in others they are more mean-spirited and may shoot arrows at their
larger counterparts. In many tales the
“Little People” serve as spiritual guides or helpers to lost travelers.
In the 1980s the original
X-rays were carefully studied and scientists indicated that the tiny remains
were more likely to be those of a malformed infant who had been left in the
cave to die instead of a full-grown man.
The infant might have suffered from anencephaly, which would account for
the misshapen head. But it didn’t
explain fully developed rib-cage or reports that the mummy had teeth. Since the mummy can no longer be found to
examine, no one really knows who he was or how he got there.
The last owner of the mummy was New
Yorker Leonard Wadler. After that, the
mummy disappeared from history. Many
articles have appeared about the Pedro Mummy, including stories in the Casper Star Tribune. Since its disappearance, scientists and
collectors have had interest in finding the missing mummy, even offering
rewards, so it can be examined.
All of this caught my interest and after
talking it over with my co-author and sister, Loretta, she became interested in
the story as well. We decided to write a
mystery starting with the premise: what if some antique dealer actually had the
mummy? What would happen if such an
artifact resurfaced?
In
our third Jeff McQuede novel, Whispers of
the Stones, Sheriff McQuede investigates such an event. The details concerning the mummy in this
story are as true as we could make them from varying research sources. The rest, of course, is fiction.
To read more about The Pedro Mummy:
As you read accounts of the Pedro Mummy, you will find many discrepancies, because even in newspapers and journals there are many different accounts of what happened. When writing our story, we used those dates and sources from what seemed the most reliable references. Here are some places on the Internet to read more about the Pedro Mummy and the “Little People”.
The Pedro Mummy:
The Little People:
Whispers of the Stones; A Jeff McQuede Mystery by Loretta Jackson and Vickie
Britton
