Were “alien mummies” really revealed in Mexico? Here’s what we know

On Tuesday, while testifying under oath in front of Mexico’s Congress, journalist and ufologist José Jaime Maussan Flota shocked the world with two boxes that he claimed contained the bodies of deceased extraterrestrial visitors. Not surprisingly, social media has been abuzz about these reports. Yet are they valid?

Who is Jaime Maussan?

This isn’t the first time the controversial ufologist has made extraordinary claims about strange corpse discoveries. In 2015, Jaime Maussan is a led an event called Be Witness in which he unveiled what he claimed was a mummified alien body that he had supposedly discovered in Peru. The mummified body was later found to have belonged to an ancient human child. In 2017, he worked with a pseudoscience website called Gaia.com to again claim that he had found a mummified alien, a claim that also did not pan out.

What did Maussan say this time?

“This is the first time it (extraterrestrial life) is presented in such a form and I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world,” Maussan told the lawmakers.

Another translation of his remarks read, “At the moment the Pentagon has not agreed to release this information and allow congressmen to witness these biological remains. We are going to discover at this moment those bodies that, according to the scientists who are going to declare it here, are non-human beings.”

Maussan also claimed, “They are beings, non-humans who are not part of our terrestrial evolution and that after disappearing we do not [think] there is a subsequent evolution.”

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

Who else was there?

The supposed aliens were unveiled in front of the Mexican Congress. One prominent American was present: Former Navy Lt. Ryan Graves, who testified before the United States Congress in July about UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena, a more formal word for UFO), including some with which he said he had direct encounters while on active duty.

Where and how did they find these “aliens?”

Maussan says that the pair of mummified aliens were discovered in a diatom mine in Cusco, Peru. Maussan presented them in wooden boxes on Tuesday during the first public congressional hearings ever held by the Mexican government on UAPs.

What do the aliens look like?

The alleged extraterrestrials resemble creatures from a low-budget “E.T.” knock-off. Each alien is somewhat humanoid: A head with two eyes, a nose and a mouth, as well as a trunk with two arms and two legs. Yet each alien has a horizontally elongated head, in addition to three skinny fingers on their hands. Their eyes, noses and mouths also appear much smaller than a human’s. Maussan said that X-rays detected eggs inside one of them and that both had implants of very rare metals. One expert claimed that DNA tests found 30% of the purported bodies’ DNA was unknown.

How old are these supposed aliens?

According to Maussan, the National Autonomous University of Mexico performed carbon-14 dating on the purported bodies and determined them to be between 700 years and 1,800 years old.

So how authentic are these creatures?

Graves, who has testified that he believes UAPs are real, denounced the supposed bodies on X/Twitter. He wrote that “after the U.S. Congressional UFO hearing, I accepted an invitation to testify before the Mexican Congress hoping to keep up the momentum of government interest in pilot experiences with UAP. Unfortunately, yesterday’s demonstration was a huge step backwards for this issue.”

He added that his own testimony was about his direct experiences and on UAP reports from commercial and military aircrew. “I will continue to raise awareness of UAP as an urgent matter of aerospace safety, national security, and science, but I am deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiated stunt,” Graves said.