When Japan and China went to war in 1937, an untold number of lives were lost.

Men, women, and children were blotted off the map, some vanishing without a trace. But among the names that were

mourned was someone who had already been dead for hundreds of thousands of years. His name was

the Peking Man, and he lived close to 780,000 years ago. Or rather, they lived. You see, the Peking

man is the name of a collection of human bones

discovered 30 miles southwest of Beijing. These bones, found by paleoontologists in 1921,

mark the first ancient human remains ever discovered on mainland Asia, and provided all new

information about our early human ancestors.

In other words, these bones were a big deal.

So when the Japanese invaded over a decade later, the Chinese knew the Peking Man fossils

had to be protected at all costs.

In 1941, in an attempt to hide the coveted remains from their invaders, China tried to smuggle

them to the United States, tried being the operative word here. The ship transporting the bones

was attacked, and in the chaos of battle, the crates containing the fossils disappeared.

For 80 years now, countless attempts have been made to find them. Everyone from

the CIA to psychics with divining rods have been brought in to hunt for the priceless artifacts.

But to this day, not a single one of the missing bones has ever been found. The humans who made

up the Peking Man remains might well have been the first

legendary residence of Beijing, but they certainly wouldn't be the last. These days, the city

boasts a population of 22 million people, and with thousands of years of human history

behind it, and a countless lineage of human souls, it's no wonder that some of them have stuck

around. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. It's been known by many names across the centuries.

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