The Short Version
No credible evidence supports the claim that the Smithsonian excavated 7-foot-plus skeletons and then suppressed all records. High-authority fact-checks from AP News and PolitiFact trace the suppression narrative to a satirical fiction website, and the Smithsonian's own spokesperson has directly denied any destruction or concealment. While 19th-century mound excavations did occur, the leap from sparse historical newspaper accounts to a systematic institutional cover-up is unsupported and relies on argument from ignorance.