# The three-fingered bodies from Nazca, Peru are non-human aliens

**Verdict: Contradicted.** The bodies are real physical objects, but Peru's state forensic institute, mummy-science scholars and independent experts agree they are assembled fakes: genuine ancient human and animal bones, some looted from real graves, reworked with modern glue into doll-like figures.

Category: UFOs & Aliens · Era: 2010s–2020s · First circulated: 2017–2023
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/nazca-alien-mummies

## Summary
Small, gray, three-fingered bodies presented as extraterrestrials, first online in 2017 and then, dramatically, inside Mexico's Congress in 2023. They are physically real. They are also, on the evidence of Peru's own forensic institute and the wider scientific community, manipulated remains: authentic ancient bones, some of them looted from genuine Nazca-era graves, assembled with modern materials into figures made to look non-human.

## The claim
That mummified humanoid bodies recovered near Nazca, Peru (small, dessicated, with elongated skulls and three fingers on each hand and foot) are the remains of non-human, extraterrestrial beings that are not part of terrestrial evolution, and that DNA testing, carbon dating and X-rays support their authenticity as a separate species.

## Origin and timeline
- 2015–2016: Groups looting archaeological sites along Peru's southern coast dig up genuine ancient human remains. Peruvian authorities and archaeologists later trace some of the material used in the 'mummies' to this grave robbing.
- 2017-06: The subscription platform Gaia releases the video series “Unearthing Nazca,” featuring a large three-fingered body nicknamed 'Maria' and promising a scientific investigation. Mexican broadcaster Jaime Maussan helps publicize the find.
- 2017-2018: Independent scientists push back hard. Early DNA samples come back matching human beings, and a Peruvian prosecutor's report describes some specimens as recently made dolls covered in paper and synthetic glue.
- 2018: At the IX World Congress on Mummy Studies in Lima, scholars issue a public declaration rejecting the 'alien mummy' claims as a hoax and condemning the looting and manipulation of real archaeological remains.
- 2023-09-12: Maussan presents two boxed bodies at a Mexican Congress hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena and testifies under oath that they are “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.” Scientists worldwide reject the presentation.
- 2024-01-12: Forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada, of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Peru's Public Ministry, presents an analysis of two figures seized at Lima's airport: they are dolls assembled from human and animal bones and modern glue, “not extraterrestrials.”

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: The bodies are physically real objects, not photographs or CGI, and you can X-ray and scan them.
  Evidence: True, and it is the strongest thing believers have. These are tangible artifacts that have been X-rayed, CT-scanned and sampled. That is exactly why the scientific verdict carries weight: physical examination is what showed the figures to be constructed from real bone and modern materials, rather than proving them non-human.
- Claim: Carbon dating shows the material is roughly 1,000 to 1,800 years old, matching the Nazca era.
  Evidence: The organic material really is ancient, and that is the problem, not the proof. Peruvian archaeologists say the age is consistent with genuine pre-Columbian remains that were looted from real graves. Old bones establish that authentic human tissue was used as raw material; they say nothing about whether the assembled figure is a natural body or a fabrication.
- Claim: DNA testing revealed sequences that do not match any known species.
  Evidence: Independent geneticists who examined the released data found it degraded, contaminated and, where readable, human. A widely cited “30 percent unknown DNA” figure is what you expect from a low-quality ancient sample full of environmental contamination, not evidence of a new species. No peer-reviewed genome supporting a non-human origin has ever been published.
- Claim: The three-fingered hands and elongated skulls cannot be explained as ordinary human anatomy.
  Evidence: Forensic examiners found they need not be. Peru's Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences concluded the figures were assembled from human and animal bones joined with synthetic glue, with fingers and skulls rearranged to look non-human. Elongated skulls are also a documented, entirely human practice of intentional cranial shaping in the ancient Andes.

## Why people believe it
- The objects are real and tactile, and they were presented with the trappings of science: white coats, X-ray light boxes, carbon-dating certificates and sworn testimony inside a national legislature. The packaging looks exactly like evidence.
- A televised hearing in Mexico's Congress lent the display the authority of the state, and footage of lawmakers examining boxed “bodies” traveled far faster and wider than the later forensic rebuttals ever did.
- The find slots neatly into the popular ancient-astronaut narrative already attached to the Nazca Lines, which pop culture has long framed as messages to visitors from the sky.
- Distrust of official denials means that when a government institute says “these are fakes,” some people hear a cover-up rather than a conclusion, especially when promoters frame the scientists as suppressing a discovery.
- Genuinely strange details (ancient bone, unusual proportions, ambiguous scans) leave just enough real anomaly that a motivated viewer can treat every unanswered question as proof the mainstream is wrong.

## Open questions
- Exactly which graves the authentic ancient bone was taken from, and how much irreplaceable archaeological and human-remains evidence was destroyed in the process of manufacturing the figures, is something Peruvian cultural authorities say they are still working to establish.
- Who physically built the composite figures, and where, has not been publicly resolved; the forensic finding describes what the objects are made of and how, but the chain from looted grave to finished doll runs through people who have not been identified in the public record.
- Whether every specimen in the wider 'Nazca mummy' collection is a deliberate assembly, or whether some began as genuine (if damaged) ancient burials that were then altered, is still debated among the researchers who have handled different bodies.
- How much of the released DNA and imaging data is usable at all, given contamination and degradation, remains contested, which is part of why promoters and critics can look at the same files and describe them so differently.

## Sources
- Alleged Alien Corpses Displayed to Mexican Congress Did Not Convince Scientists, Smithsonian Magazine (2023): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/alleged-aliens-corpses-displayed-to-mexican-congress-did-not-convince-scientists-180982900/
- “Aliens” found in Peru are actually dolls made of bones, forensic experts declare, CBS News (2024): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/peru-dolls-are-not-aliens-forensic-experts-say/
- Scientists assert 'alien mummies' in Peru are really dolls made from Earthly bones, Rappler / Agence France-Presse (2024): https://www.rappler.com/world/latin-america/scientists-assert-alien-mummies-peru-dolls-from-earthly-bones/
- These 'Alien' Mummies Appear to Be a Mix of Looted Body Parts, Live Science (2018): https://www.livescience.com/62045-alien-mummies-explained.html
- Why Would Anyone Think the Mexican 'Alien Mummies' Were Real?, Skeptical Inquirer (Center for Inquiry) (2023): https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/why-would-anyone-think-the-mexican-alien-mummies-were-real/
- Did Researchers Find a Mummified, Three-Fingered Alien in Nazca, Peru?, Snopes (2017): https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alien-mummy-peru/
- Fake and Alien Mummies (Encyclopedia of Mummy Studies), Springer Nature (2021): https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-981-15-3354-9_36
- Jaime Maussan, Wikipedia (2024): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Maussan

Rated by The Conspiratory, a neutral, sourced encyclopedia of conspiracy theories. Full page: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/nazca-alien-mummies