Self-described ufologist José Jaime Maussan presented a pair of caskets to Mexico's Congress Tuesday containing what he claimed were the remains of extraterrestrials. Under oath, Maussan suggested that the figures supposedly discovered in Peru in 2017, "were not mummies" and had "not been manipulated." What's more, he claimed they were "non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution."

While entertaining, the news of potential dead aliens — which coincidentally broke the day of House Republicans' announcement of a forthcoming impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden — left many scientists skeptical and for good reason.

It appears this close encounter of a third kind is likely a second encounter with an older fraud.

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Far-out claims

The coffins that Maussan presented to Mexican lawmakers contained a pair of chalky humanoid figures with elongated heads, pie-shaped faces, sandy complexions, and protruding sternums.

Maussan, linked to a previously debunked claim that the mummy of a human child was alien in nature, claimed Tuesday that the figures had been found in algae mines and together constituted the "queen of all evidence. ... That is, if the DNA is showing us that they are non-human beings and that there is nothing that looks like this in the world, we should take it as such."

The Independent reported that Maussan further alleged the figures had been studied by scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where radiocarbon dating was used to draw DNA evidence.

José de Jesús Zalce Benítez, a forensic expert and military doctor, discussed supposed scans of the figures during the hearing and detailed their physiology, reported NPR.

Benítez, who served as lead researcher on Maussan's previosuly debunked body discovery, claimed the figures had retractable necks, big brains, and big eyes, "which allowed for a wide stereoscopic vision." Additionally, on the basis of the figure's lack of teeth, the military doctor suggested the figures neither drank nor chewed.

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While former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves, executive director of the Americans for Safe Aerospace organization, also spoke before the Mexican Congress Tuesday, he has since attempted to distance himself from the hearing following Maussan's carnivalesque presentation.

Graves wrote on X, "Yesterday’s demonstration was a huge step backwards for this issue. My testimony centered on sharing my experience and the UAP reports I hear from commercial and military aircrew through ASA’s witness program. I will continue to raise awareness of UAP as an urgent matter of aerospace safety, national security, and science, but I am deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiated stunt."

Grave robbers, posthumous butchery, and fakes

According to the Associated Press, these particular figures appear to be the same or at least of the same make purportedly found buried beneath the sandy Peruvian coastal desert of Nazca, about which Maussan previously made claims similar to those he volunteered Tuesday before the Mexican Congress.

The last time around, Peru's prosecutor's office determined the figures were in fact "recently manufactured dolls, which have been covered with a mixture of paper and synthetic glue to simulate the presence of skin."

The Peruvian prosecutor's office further indicated that the figurines were almost certainly human-made and not "the remains of ancestral aliens that they have tried to present."

Live Science reported in 2018 that the three-fingered mummies passed off as aliens were likely the result of a "combination of the looting and manipulation of real human mummy parts," with a white coating added afterward to conceal the manipulations.

A dozen Peruvian mummy researchers denounced the manufacture of the apparent fakes, claiming their production using human remains "violated numerous national and international norms."

Guido Lombardi, a professor of forensic sciences at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, told Live Science, "I particularly find repulsive that anyone would [dare] to dehumanize deceased human bodies. You can't take away the condition of human to a human being!"

While Maussan suggested in his testimony that the National Autonomous University of Mexico backed up his claims, it appears this claim was also a stretch.

The Associated Press reported that Julieta Fierro, a researcher at the institution, made clear that Maussan's assertion that the university endorsed his so-called discovery was false.

"Maussan has done many things. He says he has talked to the Virgin of Guadalupe," said Fierro. "He told me extraterrestrials do not talk to me like they talk to him because I don’t believe in them."

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