The lost Peking Man fossils
In December 1941 the Peking Man skulls were packed at Peking Union Medical College to be shipped to the US with American Marines, and were never seen again.
1941 CE · 39.91, 116.42 · status: unexplained
The account
The fossils from Zhoukoudian were among the most important human ancestors known. Theories put them on a sunk ship, in a Japanese collection, or buried near a Qinhuangdao barracks. Searches in the 2000s and 2010s found nothing.
The sceptical view
Nothing paranormal: probably lost or destroyed in the chaos after Pearl Harbor. Plaster casts survive.
The researched reading
A real wartime loss of priceless fossils. Destruction or theft in the turmoil after Pearl Harbor explains it; nothing in it is paranormal.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Packed into crates as Japan entered the war, the fossils were probably lost in the chaos: the Marines were captured at Qinhuangdao, and crates may have been discarded, destroyed or sunk (one theory links them to a ship such as the Awa Maru). |
| Undetermined | 20% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | Theft by soldiers, sale to collectors or concealment are plausible human outcomes; various claims of hidden crates, including one burial site in Qinhuangdao searched in 2012, have not been confirmed. |
| A cultural story | 15% | The loss has generated many legends and false trails, from buried footlockers to secret collections. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | Witness memories of where crates went, gathered decades later, conflict. |
| Something in the surroundings | 2% | Not relevant. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | Lost cargo in wartime needs no strange cause. |
Official position: No conclusion; Chinese and other investigators have searched for the fossils for decades without success.