cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/6680998
Aliens have not been discovered in South America after all. The doll-like figures, photos of which went viral online last year, are just that – dolls, according to scientists.
The controversial artifacts were seized by Peruvian customs agents in October and intended for “a Mexican citizen,” the Associated Press reported.
Mexican journalist and self-described “UFOlogist” Jaime Maussan brought similar unidentified fraudulent objects in front of the Mexican congress last September, claiming that they had been recovered near Peru’s ancient Nazca Lines and dated over 700 years old.
…
Experts with Peru’s prosecutor’s office analyzed the seized dolls, and forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada presented the results of their findings at a press conference for the Peruvian Ministry of Culture on Friday.
“They are not extraterrestrials, they are not intraterrestrials, they are not a new species, they are not hybrids, they are none of those things that this group of pseudo-scientists who for six years have been presenting with these elements,” Estrada said.
The humanoid three-fingered dolls consisted of earth-bound animal and human bones assembled with modern synthetic glue, Estrada elaborated. It isn’t the first time Maussan has had an otherworldly corpse debunked — he made similar claims in 2017.
I think it’s important to note that these are not the ones that had previously been presented. These are from unknown origin and, besides appearance, don’t have any confirmed connection.
I don’t take a stance on the presented mummies. If people are interested in researching any then more power to them. I’ll support any research that is made available for both the scientific community and public to review and decide themselves.
Whether presented with claimed extraterrestrials or earthly, new species, don’t let hoaxes make you dismiss all bizarre new claims. If we let hoaxes muddy the waters then we would have given up on researching dinosaurs and extinct species decades ago.
I’ll sit back and let science run its course. But, I’m not going to get invested in anything until enough of the scientific community takes interest and develops proof.
I think a lot of the skepticism here is rather eloquently summarized by Sr. Estrada:
Watch “ancient aliens” or a similar show (which depressingly are the root source of pretty much any UFO theories these days). It’s just a constant stream of “How did these brown people figure out how make simple geometric shapes?!? It must have been aliens” and conveniently ignoring that pretty much every ancient culture they talk about were technologically as advanced as Rome ever was. Hell, most of the Incan aquaduct system is both still in use and *massively predates the Inca showing up. And have you ever been to Nazca? There’s fuckall else to do there except think, and you’ve got the biggest blank canvas in the world to mess around with.
Setting aside the “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” issue with using dinosaurs or extinct species as an example, it’s hard to afford scientific skepticism (and therefore hypothetical credibility) to these claims because, while they are much less overt than the stereotypical race science bullshit, time and time again they’re shown to stem from some incredibly racist foundational assumptions.
I understand the issue with “ancient aliens” being insulting to cultures that made astounding accomplishments, but you’re bringing in an irrelevant argument. This is an issue of if they were real living entities, not their impact on a culture. There is barely research on the authenticity, let alone the cultural impact of them. Also keep in mind that the initial research presented at the Mexican hearing was from a Peruvian university. You’re using an argument of a different race and culture judging another, when it’s Peruvians researching objects found in Peru. That doesn’t necessarily rule out cultural bias, but it seems like an unnecessary leap to bring race into the argument of whether something is biological entity.
Ah, I think you’re falling into something of an ontological trap here. Scientific investigation is a much more complicated process than you present, and while I can attribute much of that simplification not to a failure of understanding on your part but to the brevity of this medium, I’d like to highlight a couple things for the sake of clarity that were glossed over.
(First, I’ll point out that these dolls are pretty much identical to the ones presented by Jaime Maussan (although I can find no confirmation that they are the exact same ones, the (predictably low quality) images of the two sets match as best as image quality allows))
This isn’t a question of ‘if these are authentic remains’. Well, not at first. Despite the impression given by some of the more odious members of the scientific community, our work doesn’t actually happen in a grand impartial vacuum. I’d argue that outside of some extremely specific cases, it can’t happen in an impartial vacuum. The credibility of the author, of the claim and of the source are all crucially relevant to the process, and those are the first three things any evaluator looks at first (usually, because they’re found on the very first page…). The presentation by an author with a reputation for presenting spurious claims, of claims that are extremely similar to others that have been debunked time and time again and/or the presentation of said claims from an academic body that has a reputation for perpetuating hoaxes or lacks academic credentials related to a topic are all grounds for very healthy skepticism. And these are just the first things evaluated,
In this case, we have all three!
Dubious Author: Maussan has a pretty colorful reputation, in no small part to his documentary where he makes claims best described as ‘totally bonkers’. There’s also his history to consider, like that time he tried to pass off a mummified human child he just bought somewhere as an alien. So skepticism here, given the number of times he’s pulled these stunts in the past, seems extremely warranted.
Dubious Claim: I’m setting aside the fact that claims of extraterrestrial mummies are, by their nature, claims in an extremely ill-reputed field. Judging based on the fact that ‘it’s so obviously not aliens’ while a decent way to maintain a skeptical outlook, isn’t quite what I would call “rigorous analysis”. However, there is an absolutely astounding number of “mummified aliens” that have been found over the years and then gone on to be shown to be… not aliens. And it’s not as if there’s a coverup disproving all these, unless the aliens have more morphological variation in their species than is credible and has carefully deposited one or two examples of each different morphological example all over the world. Some of them could for the sake of argument I suppose be real, but again this is just a cause for skepticism and not dismissal of the claims. (oh, and if you want an example of debunked alien mummies, Gaia Inc has a debunked video of ‘alien mummies’ featuring Maussan… in 2017.)
Dubious Academics: I’ve been unable to find any research done by established or unestablished academic bodies, credible or not, nor any academic body claiming they have done so. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is the closest we get on this particular topic, the body Maussan claims association with in his presentation to el Congreso de la Unión and in later remarks about those same aliens. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, just that it certainly has not been made particularly easy to dig up in english or spanish academic resources. What I was able to discover, however, is multiple times UNAM has stated it made no such claims and has no affiliation with Maussan. So, bit of a red flag there. Again, as you so helpfully pointed out in your first comment,
Now while I can’t find any actual evidence that they aren’t the same, the total lack of any academic research or evidence, except for the fact they look exactly the friggin’ same, could be assumed to be reasonable as these are new finds. I especially cannot find the supposed Peruvian university that this research is based on, which is slightly concerning since I am physically at a Peruvian university while I’m writing this. ( ‘11 Researchers’ from Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga, in a letter that goes to hilariously painful lengths to explain that they are in no way positing or supporting the claim that these are extra terrestrial remains)
(Well, I could easily find loads of the the research done that to disprove these, like above, or the Maussan finds. Although admittedly the Maussan finds weren’t really “research” more just “looking at Maussan’s numbers and going 'he’s making this shit up, this doesn’t make any sense, no not ‘oh but aliens don’t have to make sense’ not making sense, I mean not making sense as in “there’s contradicting information in the same graphs and spectral lines for things that clearly aren’t related carbon 14 dating being claimed to be evidence of their age, when carbon 14 dating doesn’t have anything to do with spectral imaging. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he’s making this shit up.” Oh, it’s that guy? The one with the speaking tour where he showed off the remains of some poor dead kid he found? yeah…”)
Listen. There’s being healthily skeptical, and there’s being being so desperate for any confirmation that you’re willing to ignore the heaping mountains of evidence here. To end on a petty personal note, I need you to understand that it’s not “bringing in an irrelevant argument” if that argument was made BY A QUOTED SOURCE IN THE LINKED ARTICLE. All you’re doing by going “Hey, don’t drag racism into this” when
1: I didn’t, I expanded on what was in the article
2: You seem to be pushing the fallacious idea that you can’t acknowledge racism if you’re going to maintain scientific detachment.
is being some kind of weird racist-UFOlogist-apologist. As I so exhaustively have just explained, the credibility of a source or claim is entirely contextual. THAT is why I, and Sr. Estrada, brought up how often these damn things are racist. Can racists make meaningful contributions to science? Obviously. Take, for example, all science prior to 1900. Should we ignore all claims made by people we find odious? No. Should we let the context affect the conclusions we draw on a subject? Yes. That’s fundamentally how science (and all ‘information’, really) works.
I believe you’re reading too much into my comments and interest in this particular story. Though, I appreciate your contributions to the discussion.
Reading too much into your interest? Entirely possible! I wrote that to provide an evidential foundation to my remarks.
Reading too much into the comments you’ve made? I’m not reading much of anything into those. In fact that was in large part a response to the specific language you used. You’re repeating racist talking points that are common throughout the UAP/UFO community, and now you’re attempting to brush that off with “nah you read it wrong”. I doubt it’s intentional, but it’s not like I’m putting words in your mouth when you try and shut down a comment you don’t particularly like with incorrect statements of fact and telling me it’s irrelevant to discuss points that were brought up in the article itself.
I know introspection isn’t exactly the #1 most popular human past-time, but seriously, look at yourself here. You’re behaving like a UFOlogist in a meme, refusing to engage with evidence that runs counter to your own biases. And that sucks, because I doubt there would be anything like a disagreement if this were IRL. I’m not trying to attack you, just point out that maybe you should reflect on your own preconceptions about interacting online.
Please reread what I’ve said so far. I have acknowledged that “ancient aliens” is racially insensitive. In fact, there is not a single structure that I attribute to aliens. I’ve said I have no investment in the alleged mummies, nor do I have an opinion of authenticity. I wasn’t saying that the quote by Sr. Estrada wasn’t relevant. I was saying that the subject of race isn’t relevant to whether something is a biological entity. You brought the subject of race to this post and I was addressing that. Maussan does have a dubious history and right now you’re fabricating as much as he has. Take a step back, catch your breath and realize that we are agreeing on a lot, but you’re forcing a narrative that I’m not a part of.
Classic case of someone trying to seem intelligent by creating a strawman and refuting it (and with so much effort). Thank you for staying patient and polite with this person.
These are exactly the mummies presented in Mexico about 1½ month ago:
https://www.newsweek.com/was-unknown-dna-found-peru-mummies-what-we-know-1848782
“The prosecutor’s office has not yet determined who the owners of the objects are but Peru officials said a Mexican citizen was the intended recipient before customs agents seized them in October, AP reported.”
Also, as stated in the article you linked the hearing was in September, not 1 1/2 months ago. The objects analyzed here were found in October. The alleged mummies presented at the hearing are still in possession of Maussan.
I don’t allege the originals to be real, but let’s stick with facts.
OK, I was sure they were the same, they look identical, and I may have misunderstood, because I thought it said they were owned by Maussan about both the proven fakes and the ones displayed in Mexico.
If they are not the same, it looks like the same person made them.
I do find it interesting how often a confounding story pops up. Grusch testifies, 10’ foot aliens (hoax) invade Vegas, etc.
It is weird. I try not to get too wrapped up in it, but it is frustrating. Especially when skeptics come in with more investment in the subject than a lot of believers and are hell bent on taking any opportunity to discredit the subject as a whole.