An anomalous discovery
In the 1930s, a teenager reportedly found two skeletons in a mine tunnel about 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Chihuahua, Mexico. One skeleton was of a typical adult human, but the other was smaller and possessed a strikingly misshapen skull. For decades, the unusual skull was a private curiosity. In 1999, paranormalist author Lloyd Pye acquired it, named it the "Starchild Skull," and began a campaign to prove its extraterrestrial origins.
Radiocarbon dating places the skull's age at approximately 900 years old. Physically, it is highly unusual. The cranial capacity is 1,600 cubic centimeters, which is 200 cm³ larger than the average for an adult human, despite dental analysis suggesting the skull belonged to a child of 4.5 to 5 years old. The eye sockets are shallow and oval, and the skull lacks frontal sinuses. The bone itself is reportedly thinner and lighter than typical human bone but is composed of the normal material of mammalian bone, calcium hydroxyapatite. Proponents of an alien origin also point to microscopic fibers found embedded in the bone matrix, which they claim are unknown to science.
Genetics versus speculation
The central debate over the Starchild Skull is its genetics. Multiple DNA analyses have been conducted with conflicting interpretations. In 1999, a forensic DNA lab in Vancouver, B.C., found standard X and Y chromosomes, concluding the skull belonged to a human male with two human parents. A 2003 test by Trace Genetics, a lab specializing in ancient samples, successfully isolated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
The results showed the child was in mtDNA haplogroup C. Since mitochondrial DNA is passed down from the mother, this confirmed the child had a human mother of Native American ancestry. The adult female skeleton found with the child belonged to haplogroup A, indicating she was not the child's biological mother.
Scientists explain the skull's strange morphology as a result of congenital hydrocephalus. This medical condition involves a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid, which puts pressure on the brain and causes the soft, unfused skull bones of a child to expand and deform. Neurologist Steven Novella of Yale University Medical School stated that the cranium shows all the characteristics of a child who died from this condition. Proponents of the extraterrestrial theory, led by the late Lloyd Pye, argued that the DNA tests were flawed or incomplete. They claimed that nuclear DNA analysis failed to identify a human father and that subsequent, more controversial tests on the FOXP2 gene showed 56 variations from the human norm, a number far exceeding the differences between humans and other primates. This claim, however, has not been verified in peer-reviewed literature.