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  • 2017-01-13 (xsd:date)
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  • Elongated Skulls Found in Peru Could Be Aliens? (en)
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  • A story has been circulating around alien and UFO conspiracy web sites since 2014, alluding that DNA tests done on cone-shaped skulls found in the Paracas region of Peru show they are of extraterrestrial origin. The strange appearance of the skulls coupled with the outlandish claim continues to give the story legs, and it continues to make the rounds as of mid-January 2017: The announcement in 2014 that the skulls had non-human DNA was originally promoted by Brien Foerster, a figure known for pseudoscience. As RationalWiki notes: The elongated shape of the skulls is most likely due to a practice known to anthropologists called artificial cranial deformation. This has been practiced in a number of cultures from a wide variety of geographies, going back millennia: The Paracas skulls are on display at the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Lima, Peru, and were first discovered in the 1920s by Peruvian archaeologist, Julio Tello. They are an apparent source of interest to paranormalists who search for signs of extraterrestrial or Biblical phenomena. Some web sites put forward the claim that the skulls belong to nephilim, Biblical creatures that, according to Genesis, were the offspring of gods and human women. This is not the first time a discovery of human remains with elongated skulls sparked the hopes of UFO enthusiasts. A 2015 discovery of a prehistoric woman in Russia, at a site known as Arkaim or Russia's Stonehenge, with a similar deformity also created a buzz: While both English and Spanish-language web sites have published pages of credulous stories about Foerster's discovery, the Spanish-language skeptics blog Marcianitas Verdes notes: The web site delves into what may have caused the vague genetic abnormality supposedly found by Foerster's investigation: We found no credible academic sources or publications corroborating the claim that DNA taken from the skulls found at Paracas was not human in origin or abnormal enough to warrant further study. The practice of purposely elongating skulls is well known to anthropologists, and while academics may debate the motivation certain societies had for doing it, there is no scientific debate over whether those societies were human. (en)
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