Nephilim

The Nephilim (Hebrew: נְפִילִים) are, are ... well, no one has any idea really. They get a mention in the Bible, though. But apparently not in previous mythology. The Septuagint, which underlies most Christian Bibles, translates the word nephilim as γίγαντες, "giants", which is the word used in both the King James and Douay-Rheims versions in English.

Depending on your point of view they are one of the following:


 * 1) a third category of creatures, separate from Men and angels
 * 2) aliens
 * 3) giants
 * 4) human-angel hybrids
 * 5) Humans with the soul of a non-human race the result of the Bible being an inconsistent mishmash of previous mythologies
 * 6) a simple mistranslation

Spottings
The Nephilim are mentioned in the Bible in two sections:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Hoax spottings
Some Internet pranksters have attempted to pass off manipulated images of giant skeletons at archaeological dig sites as real. These images have been claimed as proof of the giants mentioned in the Bible, the Qu'ran, or Hindu texts, depending on the story. It's even referenced as yet another deep web secret that can be found.

Other sightings
A story in 2015 claimed that Nephilim DNA had been extracted from a mysterious 19th century female corpse from the Caucasus. Seemingly, reporters made the deduction that if someone's DNA was a bit odd, they had to be a Biblical giant descended from angels. (Do angels have DNA? Can they be cloned? Report to your nearest NERV recruiting station if you have the answers!)

Reports in the nutty right-wing Christian media in 2016 claimed that American soldiers had engaged and killed a Nephilim in Afghanistan and his corpse had been flown back to the USA.

Do NOT see also

 * NephilimFree