Reported ancient mammoth bones found deep in Alaska were actually whales from 250 miles away

What for decades looked like a remarkable woolly mammoth discovery in Alaska has turned into an even stranger scientific mystery.

Reported ancient mammoth bones found deep in Alaska were actually whales from 250 miles away. What for decades looked like a remarkable woolly mammoth discovery in Alaska has turned into an even stranger scientific mystery. Researchers say fossilized backbones — not a complete skeleton — unearthed deep in Alaska's interior were not mammoths after all; they were whales, found about 250 miles from the nearest coastline, Science Alert reported. The story began in 1951, when archaeologist Otto Geist found the large bones while traveling through Alaska's interior, in the prehistoric region known as Beringia. Because of their size, and because late Pleistocene megafauna remains were common in the area, the bones were identified as woolly mammoth bones. That interpretation stood for decades. But when scientists at the University of Alaska Fairba...