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Little Mummified Dude ("Pedro"; The San Pedro Mountains Mummy)

MrRING

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I've always found the story of this little mummified man to be interesting. Here is a link to a different from usual photo of him:

http://www.cryptozoology.com/gallery/gallery_show.php?id=165
Link is dead; website is MIA (having transferred to Facebook).


But I was wondering - what is the opinion about it now? I could see it maybe being a deformed child, but something about it just reaks old age.

Also, weren't there some associated artifacts around it. Are they missing as well?
 
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Ah, it's Pedro!

To summarise Karl Shuker's account in The Unexplained(1998), pp134-135:

He was found in 1932 by prospectors in Wyoming, on a small ledge in a ravine. He's a mummy, 7 inches high sat down, and resembles an old man rather than a child. The top of his head is flat and covered in a gelatinous substance, suggesting his head was caved in by a blunt object.

The mummy was x-rayed to test if it was a hoax, and it did indeed have an internal skeleton, which showed signs of a violent attack. It also had a full set of teeth, including pointed canines. Its skull was closed, indicating it was an adult and not a small child. Overall morphology suggested it was 65 when it died.

It has been suggested the mummy is a deformed child, with adult skin stretched over it as in shrunken heads.

However it is tantalising to mention that there is a Native American belief of a tribe of pygmies, that euthanase their sick with a blow to the head.
 
An extract from The Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained[1982]:
"The mummy was discovered in 1932 by gold prospectors blasting the walls of a gulch in the Pedro Mountains, 60 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming. After studying it scientists ventured the theory that it was a mummified pygmy and possibly the progenitor of the American Indian. When it died it was given a ceremonial burial.

Displayed in sideshows for several years, the Pedro Mountain Mummy was eventually purchased by Ivan T Goodman, a Casper businessman, and taken to New York City. The remains, X-rayed by Dr Harry Shapiro of the American Museum of Natural History and certified as genuine by the Anthropology Department of Harvard University, were thought by some to be those of a 65-year-old person. The speculation generated interest in the legends of the Shoshone and Crow Indians of Wyoming about a miniature people, only inches tall.

Following Goodman's death in 1950 the mummy passed into the hands of one Leonard Wadler and disappeared, but interest in it continued nationwide. In 1979 pictures of Shapiro's X-rays were given to Dr George Gill, professor of Anthropology at the university of Wyoming. The withered little body he concluded, was that of an infant or a foetus, possibly of an unknown tribe of prehistoric Indians. He believed that the infant had been afflicted with anencephaly, a congenital abnormality that would account for the adult proportions of its skeleton. Discoveries of mummified remains are not uncommon in Wyoming, which has an arid climate. As Dr Gill pointed out, the Indians may have found other mummies of similarly diseased infants and quite naturally assumed that they were the remains of small adults. This in turn would tend to support the legend of a "little people"."
 
The Little People

There is overwhelming evidence from all over the world to support the theory that there were once very, very, very small races of people, only inches tall. I think it is high time that people start accepting it. Like it or not the world does work as it does work, and however much anyone may disagree with the idea of pint-sized people they have nonetheless existed, and may still exist for all that we know for certain.
 
As the quote I gave yesterday was very negative, I'm including this one from the same source - Readers Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained [1982]:

The Tools of Tiny People

In the last years of the 19th century hundreds of flint tools were found beneath the moorland peat of East Lancashire's Pennine hills. By their minute size, they seemed to belong not to the province of ancient man but rather to the world of dwarves or gnomes.

None of the tools found - scrapers, borers and tiny, crescent shaped knives - was longer than half an inch, and many were smaller than a quarter of an inch. The flaking by which they were shaped and brought to a sharp edge was so fine that in many cases, it could only be appreciated through a magnifying glass.

That the flints were not "bird points" - used for bird hunting - seems evident from the fact that nothing resembling an arrowhead was found among them. And while the scrapers and borers may conceivably have been fitted with wooden handles (they are far too small to have been used by ordinary human hands), two observations suggest that this was not done: no bored or engraved materials were found in conjunction with the flints; and even with handles, the scrapers would have been hopelessly impractical for the purpose of scraping flesh from animal hides. The same observations apply to the crescent-shaped knives, which were, in any case, clearly not designed to have handles or to be placed in wooden holders.

For such reasons, some have guessed that the knives were ritual replicas for the crescent moon. But why in that case they should have been found alongside small versions of conventional tools is a mystery, unless those too are supposed to have had a ritual purpose. (To label ancient objects of unknown purpose as "ritual instruments" is of course, a remedy commonly applied by puzzled archaeologists.)

If the Lancashire finds had been unique, they would probably have been forgotten, but other examples of tools apparently fashioned by a miniature people were found in England, beneath the floor of a drowned forest in Devon and in the sandy heathland of Suffolk. And more finds of pygmy flints have been made in other parts of the world: in Egypt, Africa, Australia, France, and Sicily, for example, and in India where small crescent-shaped knives of flint and agate were found in caves in the Vindhya hills.

Whoever the makers of the pygmy flints were, and whatever their purpose, they seem to have been an established class of artisans and to have plied their delicate craft from one end of the world to the other.
 
Putting aside the question of whether this 'little dude' is genuine or not, I watched 'The Travelling Mummy Show' on cable the other night and they investigated the 'mummy' of a 'giantess'. It was a fake, but what a work of art it was! It seems that some of these mummies were manufactuered in various forms (giants, 'devils' midgets, etc) for travelling fairs and freak shows in the earlier years of the last century. It was amazing how real this 'giantess' looked.

Carole
 
Torplete

I think what's most compelling about the "lil dude" is the x-ray information suggesting a skeleton (conviently lost in time). Was the fake giantess built on a real skeleton?

And I agree about the idea of little people - I think they were there (may still be there) but as to what they are, that is the question.

If anybody's read Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth, it seems to me like the Fair People are from other dimensions that occasionally can be glimpsed by ours, and as to the how, whys and wherefores, I don't know. Although I disagree with Kirk about their morality - I think they mirror the poles of human personality, good and bad both (Kirk thinks they are darn evil).

If anybody wants to read Kirks book, it's online with copious annotations at

http://www.dreampower.com/Kirk_WBW/

It's a really freaky, yet seemingly honest account of the Second Sight and the culture of fairy folk first hand.
 
The giantess was clay on a wooden skeleton, although one rib was, curiously, real bone (possibly a cattle bone).

I'm always intrigued that no tiny person bones have ever really been found, save pedro, unless of course they were cremated or wasn't proper bone. However, I would have thought that they would have evolved increasingly small from a common ancestor and there would be some evidence of, say, sub 3ft people somewhere... has there been this evidence.

Don't laugh people - just musing - but maybe the little people weren't human at all - just some form of small hominid descended from small apes or even monkeys... other primates can use tools and form communities... maybe some got smart, walked a little more upright and lost a bit of hair? Is that too crazy?

The little people - an extinct type of small, upright ape? At least there would be more of an evidence for at least ancestors than progressively shrinking humans...

I'm off for a google on the subject.
 
Took me a long time to find the section in that site about "little people" (although some of the other stuff there was very interesting), but here it is:

Approximately 1,500s AD: The traditions of the Cherokee tribes of southeastern North America describe a group of pygmies or little people living in the southern Appalachian mountains; accounts of pygmies in northwest North America also exist

If such a people did once exist, they may have been descendents of a migration of pygmy Aetas from the Philippines. Prevailing sea currents could easily have deposited them in the North American northwest (with them becoming known as the "Et-nane" by average-sized natives there) after a crossing of the Pacific. The great influx of large newcomers across the Bering land bridge could have forced such people to move deeper into North America, eventually settling in the pleasant surroundings of the southern Appalachians. Sometime after that they seem to have either died out from disease or other reasons, or been absorbed into the average sized tribes surrounding them.

[jump off sources include...SOME NEWLY DISCOVERED ARCHEOLOGICAL ANOMALIES FROM NORTH AMERICA From Science Frontiers Digest of Scientific Anomalies #48, NOV-DEC 1986 by William R. Corliss, citing the Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 15: 33, 77, and 77, 1986]

[jump off sources include....AMERICAN PYGMIES From Science Frontiers Digest of Scientific Anomalies #84, NOV-DEC 1992 by William R. Corliss, citing Virgilio R. Pilapil; "Was There a Prehistoric Migration of the Philippine Aetas to America?" Epigraphic Society, Occasional Papers, 20:150, 1991]


[Caution: Extreme speculation ahead; this section mostly created for "What If?" entertainment value]
Other, more exotic explanations for little people worldwide also can be had. For instance, few people circa 2000 AD will be aware that the primate precursors to humanity circa 45,000,000 BC included truly tiny monkey-like creatures so small they could stand on a 21st century person's thumb. These creatures also enjoyed an evolutionary headstart of roughly 40 million years on humanity, as well.

[jump off sources include...Fossils of Tiny Primates Found By DAVID KINNEY, Associated Press/Yahoo! Science Headlines, March 16 2000 ]

And tiny brains can often do more than we give them credit for. For example, those birds equipped with suitable vocal mechanisms can display impressive speech and speech comprehension skills, circa 2000 AD...

...What might have happened if some tiny primate managed to evolve into something akin to tiny human beings or better, over the 40 million year headstart they enjoyed over us? 40 million years is a staggering number. 21st century human beings themselves are only some 6 million years separated from chimpanzees. 40 million years is also a long time in terms of artifacts preservation. It may be that a pretty advanced civilization of tiny primates could have sprang up 30 million years or so ago, suffered a catastrophe, and disappeared, with little or nothing remaining behind to prove they ever existed. If their main civilization existed on only one continent-- and that continent was Kerguelen-- then 20 million years ago their whole world would have sank below the Indian Ocean.

[jump off sources include..."'Lost continent' discovered" By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse, BBC News Online: Sci/Tech, 5-27-99, BBC Homepage]

There's many ways such a civilization could have died and been erased from the face of the Earth-- even a relatively advanced one. If the center of the civilization had existed in Chesapeake Bay around 35,000,000 BC, it would have been erased instantly by way of a great comet impact.

[jump off sources include... Tiny Teeth Shed Light on Ancient Comets; 3/20/98; News Release; U.S. Department of the Interior; U.S. Geological Survey, Central Region Outreach Office, P.O. Box 25046, MS 150, Denver, CO 80225-0046. Contact Heidi Koehler Phone 303-236-5900 ext. 302 Fax 303-236-5882 ]

Chesapeake Bay and vicinity would appear to be a very unfortunate place for any civilization to arise-- for the cosmic impact described above was the second-- the first took place about half a million years earlier.

[jump off source: GIANT IMPACT-WAVE DEPOSIT ALONG U.S. EAST COAST From Science Frontiers Digest of Scientific Anomalies #87, MAY-JUN 1993 by William R. Corliss, citing C. Wylie Poag, et al; "Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 612 Bolide Event: New Evidence of a Late Eocene Impact-Wave Deposit and a Possible Impact Site, U.S. East Coast," Geology, 20:771, 1992 ]

But enough with tiny Atlantean monkey people. What if a larger monkey species merely evolved to a state good enough to become trusted early human companions in the pre-wolf/dog days? As seems possible from some discoveries regarding Procynocephalus monkeys and Homo erectus around 2,250,000 BC?

[jump off sources include...EARLY HOMO ERECTUS TOOLS IN CHINA by RUSSELL CIOCHON and ROY LARICK, NEWSBRIEFS, Archaeology, Volume 53 Number 1, January/February 2000, the Archaeological Institute of America, http://www.archaeology.org/0001/newsbriefs/china.html]

If such a thing happened, then the special monkeys and human ancestors also parted ways again sometime afterwards. Why? And what became of the monkeys? Could they have continued to evolve? Could it be that the reason the two split was that the monkeys began competing rather than cooperating with their human allies, by some point? Note that this scenario would appear much more plausible than the tiny Atlantean monkeys, just by virtue of much larger brain cases and overall physical sizes more comparable to small humans than mice.

What if these monkeys lacked tails, and walked upright? Walking upright over millions of years might eventually cause them to develop feet of a shape and size much like that of a human child-- thereby leaving behind footprints which would rarely attract human attention as being something out of place. What if they were also largely hairless? From a distance they would likely look like human children or short adults. If they were clothing as well, observers would likely have to be pretty close to them to see notice anything unusual about their appearance.

What if they developed their own parallel but hidden society over the millennia? Avoided human beings like the plague? Retained nocturnal habits and eyesight from the early evolution days of primates? Grew to prefer subterranean or semi-underground dwelling?

Such a scenario could go far to explain age-old myths and legends the world over concerning strange and elusive little people: leprechans, elves, dwarves, fairies, etc., etc.

Some believers will claim in 2000 AD that little people live in places like the southwestern United States. Perhaps by mere coincidence, lots of other claims of unusual finds or phenomena regarding the American southwest will make up a significant part of the American rumors circuit for centuries to come...

(edited to remove chunks of not really relevant stuff from the quote)
 
Men Without Bones

The reference to the "gelatinous material" on the skull of the small dude from Pedro Mt. in WO, in conjunction with the Indian stories of pygmies, made me think of the chilling Gerald Kersh story "Men Without Bones". In it, explorers search jungles for a tribe of mysterious pygmies, whom the natives of the area claim have no bones.

When they find them, the scientists do various test and studies of a specimen, which indeed have cartilage in place of bones, rather like sharks, and conclude that they are indeed a distinct species. And then the head scientist mutters, "Martians."

"They're from Mars?" someone asks.

"No. They fit the environment far too perfectly. They're not from Mars. We are."
 
If we are from Mars, and the cartilage-people are from Earth, how come every other "higher" vertebrate has bones?:confused:
 
Kersh's Curse

Kersh's curse was to write fiction, and the story I described is a short fiction, so such quibbles don't enter into it until afterwards. Hitchcock called this sort of objection "refrigerator logic", meaning the logical objections a movie viewer might make later that evening, as he or she makes their way to the refrigerator for a midnight snack.

In other words, all the quibbles that occur to one long after the fiction has delivered its zing.

Good question, though. Were Kersh writing today, and had he gotten that story published, he'd have faced ridicule from the science fiction fans, who tend to nit pick everything to death.
 
"Late one afternoon in October 1932, two gold prospectors working a ravine in the San Pedro Mountains near Casper, Wyo., unearthed the mummified remains of a two-legged monster.Or was it human?The corpse was small and shriveled, less than 14 inches in height, with bulging, buglike eyes, a barrel-shaped body and a flat head. The skin was loose and wrinkled, its nose was broad and flat, and its mouth was wide with thin lips.The top of its head was covered in a dark, gelatinous substance, eclipsing all but a fringe of hair around its edge.The prospectors took the curiosity back to Casper and put it on display. A car dealer, Ivan Goodman, eventually bought ``Pedro,'' as the mummy came to be known, thinking it would be a good investment.
Most scientists dismissed Pedro as a hoax. But an X-ray analysis convinced Henry Shapiro, an anthropologist with the American Museum of Natural History, that the mummy was real. According to Dr. Shapiro's report, Pedro possessed an ``irrefutably manlike skeleton, despite its tiny stature.'' It also exhibited a complete set of ribs, fully formed arms and legs with all bones readily discernible, a backbone that had once been perfectly formed but which had subsequently suffered an injury, and also a fractured left collarbone.``It seems as if this little person met its death through some violent attack, accounting not only for those injuries but also for its flattened head and the dark gelatinous substance covering its head,'' Dr. Shapiro said.The skull had been smashed by an extremely heavy blow, and the dark substance was exposed brain tissue and congealed blood.Dr. Shapiro thought Pedro was either a fetus or small child, perhaps sacrified for religious purposes. That theory was discarded, however, when a full set of teeth were found inside his mouth, an indication that the mummy was a full-grown adult. Pedro's morphology -- internally and externally -- indicated that he was at least 65 years old when he died.Dr. Shapiro conjectured that Pedro had lived far back in history.In 1950, Mr. Goodman died and Pedro became the property of Leonard Wadler. Interest in the mummy gradually waned, and today its whereabouts are unknown. But in 1979 Pedro's X-rays were shown to University of Wyoming anthropologist George Gill, who announced that it had probably been a grossly malformed infant or fetus suffering from anencephaly -- a severe condition in which most of the cranium and brain have failed to develop. Sometimes, moreover, the portion of brain that has formed is exposed, with no protective bony covering.This could account for Pedro's flattened head and its covering of congealed blood and brain tissues, according to Dr. Karl Shuker, a British scientist who has written extensively about Pedro.But Dr. Shuker said anencephaly cannot explain Pedro's adult features and dentition.Dr. Gill theorized that Pedro may have belonged to a race of prehistoric native American people.Many Indian legends hold that America was once home to an aggressive, warlike race of pygmies or ``Little People'' whose descriptions closely tally with Pedro. The Shoshone who once lived in the Wyoming region told stories about the Nimerigar, pygmy-like warriors who attacked with tiny bows that shot poisoned arrows. According to some traditions, these pygmies even kill their own kind when they become ill, by beheading them or smashing their skulls, as was the case with Pedro."




Anyone know anything about this or other pygmy tribes or peoples that have supposedly populated the Americas or Australia?:eek:
 
There are a few reports at The Cryptodominion : however it has to be noted that i personally think this site is in parts somewhat dodgy, as it reports a lot of very unlikely cryptids not reported anywhere else and has a few possibly rather racist (and, from what I know anyway, certainly rather unscientific) theories about some hominid cryptids being "de-evolved humans", IMO.
American "gnomes" (All over NA and into Mexico): A race - or species - of little people which dwells all across North America. They are brought up heavily in tribal lore across NA, and are spoken of as malevolent and agressive towards human beings. Fossils of human pygmies that were only 14 inches tall found in California help to support the possibility of these creatures existence. Also, there was a recent sighting of a "hairy short person" in New Mexico. It was described as "not human".
Brazilian little-people (Brazil SA): Described variously as "leprechauns", "pygmies", and "dwarves", these little peopel are seen sporadically in the Amazon rainforest. Are probably just a race of extremely short native people, but may be members of a different species (discussed below).
Kimos (Madagascar AFRICA): Proto-pygmies reported from Madagascar. Popular opinion is that thes, and other proto-pugmies, are survivors from some ancien species of small human, but my opinion is that they are in fact new species which evolved from human pygmies who colonised those areas extremely early in human history.
 
If we had the body of Pedro, I wonder if the proportions & size would indicate a similarity to the little people bones that were found last year?
 
If indeed there ever has been a race of particularly small people who have been scattered across the globe, I wonder whether their fate was simply assimillation into other societies?
To give an example of myself: I am 5' 4", which is obviously quite small for a man, my mother is shorter at 4' 9", my gran an inch smaller than that, and my great gran was the same. Indeed, my gran has said that all her female ancestors, that she is aware of, have been small, and this is borne out by her sisters, none of whom are above 5' 3". The only anomally is my aunt, who is quite tall, and whose children are quite tall, though they are men (other than me, no men in the family have been particularly short. Doh!).
Due to my mother being quite pushy, when I was a child, she managed to get various tests done which found that I have a genetic defect with the gland that produces growth hormone, and from there I went on to have four years of injections of artificial growth hormone.
Now, that defect would, probably, seem to have been passed on through my family, since some dim, distant time in the past. Could it be that it came from some "little person" of a little tribe? Probably not, but it's a thought.
 
I don't know, it leads me to think about things that should appear in the wierd sex thread. But then most things do... :gaga:
 
Problem with that is the x-ray showing a closed skull and the tools and ladder found with him. Supposedly.
 
Onix_Martinez said:
It's an anencephalic child, or more acurately, a baby, according to this site (in Spanish)

I thought the verdict of an anencephalic child was given based on a skeptic's dismissive look at the pictures, versus any evidence other than the pictures (the rest of the evidence, the body & x-rays being lost).

I just think that, in light of the little people skeletons found recently (and I think even they are still being labeled by some as unreliable), that maybe somebody should do a compairison ebtween the bones & estimates for the little people's existance, and the pictures we have of "Pedro".
 
I just wish I had the time to translate the page. I tried to post a Babelfish translation, but it didnt work.
 
Assuming this story is real, does this abnormal baby look an awful lot like the Little Mummified Pedro?

*WARNING Potentially Disturbing Pix**
*Proceed With Caution**

LINK
Bizarre baby born in Dolakha
By Rajendra Manandhar

Charikot, Dolakha, March 29 - The birth of a bizarre-looking baby in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, on Wednesday, drew a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.

The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot.

The Karki couple is a permanent resident of Dolakha’s Bhirkot VDC. The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death. The news about such a baby being brought to the hospital spread like wildfire and there were hundreds gathered at the hospital to have a look. The police had to be deployed to control the crowd.

“We wouldn’t have been able to save it, even if it had been brought here alive,” said a nurse attending to the mother at the hospital, “This is an extremely abnormal case.”

The “baby” weighed 2kg at birth and was born after the normal nine-month gestation period. Suntali, already a mother of two normal daughters, was not suffering from any illness during the pregnancy. Nir Bahadur, the father, says he does not feel any remorse for the newly-born baby’s death. “I am happy that nothing happened to my wife,” he said.
 
MrRING said:
Assuming this story is real, does this abnormal baby look an awful lot like the Little Mummified Pedro?

*WARNING Potentially Disturbing Pix**
*Proceed With Caution**

LINK
Bizarre baby born in Dolakha
By Rajendra Manandhar

Charikot, Dolakha, March 29 - The birth of a bizarre-looking baby in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, on Wednesday, drew a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.

The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot.

The Karki couple is a permanent resident of Dolakha’s Bhirkot VDC. The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death. The news about such a baby being brought to the hospital spread like wildfire and there were hundreds gathered at the hospital to have a look. The police had to be deployed to control the crowd.

“We wouldn’t have been able to save it, even if it had been brought here alive,” said a nurse attending to the mother at the hospital, “This is an extremely abnormal case.”

The “baby” weighed 2kg at birth and was born after the normal nine-month gestation period. Suntali, already a mother of two normal daughters, was not suffering from any illness during the pregnancy. Nir Bahadur, the father, says he does not feel any remorse for the newly-born baby’s death. “I am happy that nothing happened to my wife,” he said.

Bingo!!! There it is. I wanted to post this here, but did not have the time. Of course, there are similitudes, I am pretty certain it's the same condition. Since this is not a very common ocurrence, perhaps the people where "Pedro" was born decided to preserv him (or maybe the mummification ocurred naturally).
 
Oh man, I read that story on Snopes and saw the pics, and it gave me shivers. But I do feel bad for that poor baby. It does kind of make me wonder what people in the past, you know, a couple thousand years ago, thouhgt of babies that looked abnormal or whatever. I mean, obviously there was some infanticide of mentally handicapped babies and stuff, but in all honestly, how would they have seen a baby like that? How would we see a baby like that, that looks so different, like a completely different species, and how hard would it be for us to see past it and that inside it really is like us? Sorry, just some random musings.
 
MrRING said:
"(the rest of the evidence, the body & x-rays being lost)."

I've seen the X-Ray photograph of "Pedro" on-line within the past couple of years, so fortunately it's still in existence.
 
What I'd like to know is whether "Pedro" was truly discovered encased in SOLID ROCK, as some early accounts claim.

If so, we have a truely paranormal mystery here. If not, all bets are off.
 
Anencephalic monsters such as the "Bizarre Baby" (and PLEASE note that I use the term "monster" strictly in its correct medical sense) are "born" (dead) all around the world, and by no means as uncommonly as we'd like to think.

But in the West we don't parade them around in the streets.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
What I'd like to know is whether "Pedro" was truly discovered encased in SOLID ROCK, as some early accounts claim.

No. That was "Lemmy".
 
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