For years, bizarre three-fingered remains from Peru have fueled claims of extraterrestrial life. Now, forensic experts have delivered a far less mysterious answer: the objects were made on Earth.
Peru’s Public Prosecutor’s Office examined two doll-like figures and a separate three-fingered hand that customs officials had seized from a shipment bound for Mexico. Forensic specialists concluded that none of the objects were alien remains. Instead, they were assembled from paper, synthetic glue, metal, and human and animal bones.
Forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada, who led the analysis, said the evidence showed the figures were recently constructed rather than ancient bodies from the pre-Hispanic era. Investigators identified animal bones from birds, dogs, and other species inside the figures, while X-rays showed that the supposedly unusual three-fingered hand had been constructed using human bones.
The findings directly challenge a series of extraordinary claims that had attracted international attention. In September 2023, Mexican journalist José Jaime Maussan appeared before Mexico’s Congress with two boxes containing what he said were mummified bodies discovered in Peru. He described them as non-human beings unrelated to Earth’s evolutionary history.
Maussan later returned with a group of doctors and presented the case again, reviving claims he had also made years earlier. But Peru had already reached a similar conclusion in a 2017 investigation, which found that supposed alien bodies were recently manufactured dolls covered with paper and synthetic adhesive to imitate human skin.
The latest investigation leaves one question unanswered: who actually made or owned the objects? Peru’s prosecutors said they had not identified the owner, although a Mexican citizen was expected to receive the shipment before customs confiscated it.
The mystery, then, was never about visitors from another planet. The real story is how convincingly human-made objects could be presented as something far more extraordinary—and how forensic evidence ultimately brought the alien claim back down to Earth.
