Peru officials say seized doll-like figures are not aliens
Forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada from Peru's prosecutor's office shows a doll, which was seized by authorities before it was shipped to Mexico, during a press conference to explain what it is made of at the Archeology Museum in Lima, Peru, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024. According to Estrada, two dolls and a three-fingered hand are constructed of paper, glue, metal, human and animal bones. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
MARTIN MEJIA / AP
Dolls that were seized by authorities are displayed during a press conference to explain what they are made of at the Archeology Museum in Lima, Peru, Friday, Jan. 12. According to forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada from Peru’s prosecutor’s office, two dolls and a three-fingered hand, which were seized before being shipped to Mexico, are constructed of paper, glue, metal, human and animal bones.
MARTIN MEJIA / AP
Dolls that were seized by authorities are displayed during a press conference to explain what they are made of at the Archeology Museum in Lima, Peru, Friday, Jan. 12.
LIMA, Peru >> Aliens they are not. That’s what forensic experts in Peru said Friday about two doll-like figures and an alleged three-fingered hand that customs authorities in the South American country seized last year from a shipment heading to Mexico.
The forensic experts with Peru’s prosecutor’s office said the objects were made with paper, glue, metal and human and animal bones.
The findings quash some people’s belief that the figures come from an “alien center or come from another planet, all of which is totally false,” said forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada, who led the analysis.
“The conclusion is simple: they are dolls assembled with bones of animals from this planet, with modern synthetic glues, therefore they were not assembled during pre-Hispanic times,” Estrada told reporters. “They are not extraterrestrials; they are not aliens.”
The prosecutor’s office has not yet determined who owns the objects. Officials on Friday would only say that a Mexican citizen was the intended recipient of the objects before they were seized by customs agents in October.
Mexican journalist José Jaime Maussan and some Mexican lawmakers became the subject of international ridicule in September when he went before the country’s congress to present two boxes with supposed mummies found in Peru.
He along with others claimed they were “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.”
In November, Maussan returned to Mexico’s congress with a group of Peruvian doctors and spent more than three hours pressing the case for “non-human beings” that he said were found in Peru, where he made similar claims in 2017. A report by the Peruvian prosecutor’s office that year found that alleged alien bodies were actually “recently manufactured dolls, which have been covered with a mixture of paper and synthetic glue to simulate the presence of skin.”
“They are not the remains of ancestral aliens that they have tried to present,” the 2017 report stated.
Experts on Friday showed reporters a couple of 2-foot-long dolls dressed in red, orange and green clothes. They said examinations showed the bones of birds, dogs and other animals were used to create the dolls.
Meanwhile, an alleged three-finger hand was subjected to X-ray examinations. Estrada said the “very poorly” built hand was created with human bones.
