What happened
On 12 September 2023 Mexico's Chamber of Deputies held a hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena, weeks after the Grusch hearing in Washington. Witnesses, sworn to tell the truth, included researchers from Mexico, the United States, Japan and Brazil. The moment that went viral came when veteran Mexican journalist and ufologist Jaime Maussan unveiled two small, desiccated, three-fingered bodies in glass-topped boxes. He said they had been found in 2017 in a diatom mine near Nazca, Peru, were about a thousand years old, and represented non-human beings not part of terrestrial evolution, adding that DNA testing showed much of their genetic material was unknown. He called them the queen of all evidence. The session ran over three hours. Morena deputy Sergio Gutiérrez Luna said Congress took no position on the claims. Within days, scientists in Mexico and Peru rejected them, and the bodies became a global talking point rather than a scientific discovery.
The official explanation
Critics say the bodies are assembled artifacts. A 2017 report by Peru's prosecutor's office said figures Maussan promoted then were recently made dolls covered with paper and glue to simulate skin; it is unclear whether those were the same specimens. UNAM astronomer Julieta Fierro said the university never endorsed the claims and that the data made no sense, and UNAM said it only carbon-dated a sample in 2017 without drawing conclusions. Peruvian forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada said they were built from human and animal bones. Maussan has promoted alien-remains claims before that were later identified as a monkey, a bat and a human child.
The anomalous case
Supporters point out that the presentation was made under oath before a national legislature, and that Maussan said X-ray imaging and DNA testing supported his claims, with much of the DNA of unknown origin. At a second presentation to Mexico's Congress in November 2023, several doctors testified that the remains appeared to be those of once-living organisms, while declining to certify them as extraterrestrial, and anthropologist Roger Zúñiga asserted there was no sign of human manipulation. Because no fully independent, peer-reviewed study has yet settled their composition in public, believers argue the question is formally open, and they argue that open, transparent testing by neutral institutions is the only thing that will settle it.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Sources
- Scientists call fraud on supposed extraterrestrials presented to Mexican Congress Associated Press (via KTTC)
- Jaime Maussan Wikipedia
Witness reports elsewhere
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