Stunned U.S. Navy scientists have found a gigantic human skull lying half buried on the ocean floor… and researchers say the discovery proves that man once stood nearly 200 feet tall!

The skull measures 20 feet, 3 inches across and may have rested undisturbed in the waters of the North Atlantic for more than a million years, a top-secret government report reveals.

“This has got to bed the archaeological discovery of the century, and probably of all time,” insisted a government scientist who leaked details of the report – and a chilling photo of the skull itself – to Weekly World News this week.

“That thing is going to rewrite the history of human evolution from top to bottom. For the first time ever, we’ve uncovered a form of man that would have towered over the dinosaurs the way we tower over a cocker spaniel.”

A Pentagon spokesman denied any knowledge of the bizarre discovery and called the notion of a 20-foot human skull “the most farfetched thing I’ve heard in a while.”

But documents shown to Weekly World News reveal that crewmen aboard a Navy research sub found the enormous skull while testing a new form of armored diving gear in the sea east of Newfoundland on September 23.

The documents indicate that an unnamed diver stumbled across the hair-raising remains partially buried in silt 1,600 feet down.

“I was there and I can tell you, everybody was pretty shook-up,” said the scientist who leaked the story. “Nobody could believe what they were seeing.

“But everybody quickly regained their composure and initiated efforts to recover the skull intact and bring it successfully aboard ship.”

The source said a team of scientists is currently examining the ancient skull in a government-funded laboratory outside Washington, D.C. “And you’d better believe they’re got divers swarming all over that area of the ocean looking for more bits and pieces of the old body,” he said.

“You want to get all the evidence you can if you’re going to start telling people that men once stood 200 feet tall and weighed 6,000 pounds. I’m not an anthropologist or an archaeologist, but I’m sure they also want to know when and how he got out in the middle of the ocean like that.”

The scientist, who insisted on anonymity, said he leaked details of the discovery because he’s convinced it never should have been secret in the first place. “This is not the sort of thing that has any strategic or military importance whatsoever,” he said.

“We’re talking about rewriting the history of mankind here – and that kind of information should be shared with all mankind as quickly and openly as possible.”