Over 100 innocent settlers were brutally murdered when they crossed Mormon territory in 1857,

and the atrocious massacre has become an icon used to foster division between Mormons

and others.

Today, we look at the evidence of what truly happened and find the folly of extremism

and bigotry, but will we also find anything to balance the scales?

The Mountain Meadows Massacre is up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid, I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Inside the Mountain Meadows Massacre, when a wagon train of immigrants met its bloody

end in Utah in 1857, it launched over a century of lies, cover-ups, conspiracy theories,

and inquiries.

Today, when you hear the Mountain Meadows Massacre mentioned, it's likely to be in the

context of the Mormon Church exterminating non-Mormons from its territory, or perhaps a colorful

story of white men disguised as Native Americans to conceal their mass murder, or perhaps

a cloaked dagger tale of anti-Mormon terrorists sneaking into Utah to poison the wells and

cattle of the faithful.

There's hardly any possible version of this story that hasn't been told at some point

by someone.

But regardless of the details, September 11, 1857 ended with some 120-140 immigrants

dead.

Their bodies literally left to the scavengers on the open meadow.

Today we're going to have a look at what's known and what's not known, and hopefully dispel

some of the myths around this horrible historical massacre.

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