A screen displays images as Mexican journalist and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan (not pictured) hosts a second briefing on unidentified flying objects, known as UFOs, at Mexican Congress, in Mexico City, Mexico November 7, 2023. REUTERS/Quetzalli Nicte-Ha
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Congress heard from researchers on Tuesday who declared authentic a set of three-fingered Peruvian mummies recently presented as potential evidence of non-human life forms, while declining to certify that the remains were extraterrestrial.
Lawmakers first heard from Mexican journalist and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan on Sept. 13 when he presented two specimens in a first-of-its-kind congressional event on UFOs, or FANIs in Spanish. Maussan said the bodies, believed to have been found near Peru's ancient Nazca lines, were not related to any life on Earth.
At Tuesday's session, Maussan was more focused on proving the bodies, which were not on display this time, were not fake, ushering in a string of doctors who all said the bodies were those of real, once-living organisms.
Still, he left room for questions about their origin.
"None of the scientists say [the study results] prove that they are extraterrestrials, but I go further," he said, suggesting that they could be evidence of non-Earthly life forms.
Anthropologist Roger Zuniga of San Luis Gonzaga National University in Ica Peru said researchers had studied five similar specimens over four years.
"They're real," Zuniga told Reuters on the sidelines of the session.
"There was absolutely no human intervention in the physical and biological formation of these beings," he added, saying he didn't know the origin of the beings.
Zuniga presented a letter signed by 11 researchers from the university declaring the same. The letter made clear, however, they were not implying the bodies were "extraterrestrial".
Maussan's first presentation was criticized by many experts who dismissed it as a stunt long debunked by the scientific community, pointing to studies on similar remains that concluded the specimens were modified using animal and human bones.
When asked about those studies, Zuniga said the specimens were probably fake. The bodies that he and the other university researchers looked at, however, were real, he said.
Congressman Sergio Gutierrez, from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's ruling Morena party, called for a reform to Mexico's law to make all information about UFOs public.
Tuesday's session, at times, dipped into a more extreme explanation. Argentine surgeon Celestino Adolfo Piotto said he believed, after reviewing test results and images of the bodies, they were an evolved version of today's human beings, calling them "our descendants".
In a more colorful moment, Mexican rapper Claudio Yarto, said he had personally seen UFOs before ending his speech with a rhyme, sparking applause from the crowd.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Christian Plumb and Miral Fahmy)
