The Patagonian giants are a "mythical" tall race of people

The Patagonian giants are a "mythical" tall race of people who were supposed to have exceeded double normal human height. First mention of these people came from the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, who claimed to have seen them while exploring the coastline of South America in the 1520's. In 1579, Sir Francis Drake's ship chaplain, Francis Fletcher, wrote about meeting very tall Patagonians. In the 1590s, Anthonie Knivet claimed he had seen giant dead bodies in Patagonia. Also in the 1590s, William Adams, an Englishman aboard a Dutch ship rounding Tierra del Fuego reported a violent encounter between his ship's crew and unnaturally tall natives.