(NewsNation) — As Mexico’s Congress held its first hearing on UFOs, a self-proclaimed ufologist unveiled what he claimed were alien corpses from Peru.
Journalist Jaime Maussan, who has previously been connected to alien claims that were later proven false, testified under oath that he and others believed the bodies are “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.”
In his testimony, he said the Autonomous National University of Mexico had examined the bodies and found unknown DNA. He also said X-rays showed there were eggs inside them.
“It’s the queen of all evidence,” Maussan claimed. “That is, if the DNA is showing us that they are non-human beings and that there is nothing that looks like this in the world, we should take it as such.”
But he warned that he didn’t want to refer to them as “extraterrestrials” just yet.
The two mummified corpses were discovered in the sandy Peruvian coastal desert of Nazca in 2017. The area is known for gigantic enigmatic figures scraped into the earth and seen only from a birds-eye-view. Most attribute the Nazca Lines to ancient indigenous communities, but the formations have captured the imaginations of many.
However, not everyone is convinced the mummies are alien in nature. The World Congress on Mummy Studies called the claim a fraud when the corpses were first discovered.
In 2017, a report by the country’s prosecutor’s office found that the bodies were actually “recently manufactured dolls, which have been covered with a mixture of paper and synthetic glue to simulate the presence of skin.”
The report added that the figures were almost certainly human-made and that “they are not the remains of ancestral aliens that they have tried to present.” The bodies were not publicly unveiled at the time, so it is unclear if they are the same as those presented to Mexico’s congress.
On Wednesday, Julieta Fierro, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was among those to express skepticism, saying that many details about the figures “made no sense.”
Fierro added that the researchers’ claims that her university endorsed their supposed discovery were false, and noted that scientists would need more advanced technology than the X-rays they claimed to use to determine if the allegedly calcified bodies were “non-human”.
“Maussan has done many things. He says he has talked to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” she said. “He told me extraterrestrials do not talk to me like they talk to him because I don’t believe in them.”
The scientist added that it seemed strange that they extracted what would surely be a “treasure of the nation” from Peru without inviting the Peruvian ambassador.
It’s not the first time Maussan has been connected to such claims, which were later determined to be false. In 2015, he unveiled what was purported to be an alien body. However, the mummy was later found to be that of a child with a head deformity.
Archaeologists believe the elongated skulls on some Peruvian mummies are the result of intentional skeletal modification, which would have been practiced by wrapping babies’ heads in rope, cloths and wooden boards. The practice was possibly part of religious practice.
Mexico is not the only country interested in unexplained phenomena. The U.S. recently held a congressional hearing on UFOs, and some of the witnesses were also present at Mexico’s hearing.
Harvard astronomy professor Abraham Avi Loeb, appearing by video, called on Maussan to allow international scientists to perform further research on the mummies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
