The Starchild skull is a human child's skull that was abnormally shaped, likely due to a condition where fluid builds up in the brain from birth. It became widely known after a paranormal researcher named Lloyd Pye stated that it belonged to an extraterrestrial being.
Claims of Lloyd Pye
Pye said he received the skull from Ray and Melanie Young of El Paso, Texas, in February 1999. He stated that the skull was discovered around 1930 in a mine tunnel approximately 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Chihuahua, Mexico. The skull was found buried next to a regular human skeleton that was exposed and lying face up on the tunnel floor. Pye claimed the skull to be a mix of a human and an extraterrestrial being.
Assessment of the evidence
A dentist who studied the upper right part of the skull determined that the skull belonged to a child who was 4.5 to 5 years old. The inside of the Starchild skull has a volume of 1,600 cubic centimeters, which is 200 cm³ larger than the average adult brain and 400 cm³ larger than an adult of similar size. The eye sockets are oval and shallow, with the canal for the optic nerve closer to the bottom of the socket than the back. There are no frontal sinuses, and the back of the skull is flattened. The skull is made of calcium hydroxyapatite, the typical material found in mammalian bones.
Neurologist Steven Novella from Yale University Medical School explains that the skull shows signs of congenital hydrocephalus, a condition where excess cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the brain, causing the skull to change shape.
In 1999, DNA testing at BOLD, a forensic lab in Vancouver, British Columbia, found standard X and Y chromosomes in two samples taken from the skull. Novella says this proves the child was male and human, and that both parents were human, as each contributed one sex chromosome.
In 2003, DNA testing at Trace Genetics, a lab that specializes in extracting DNA from ancient samples, identified mitochondrial DNA from the skull. The child belongs to haplogroup C, a genetic group inherited only from the mother. This confirms the child’s mother was a human female from haplogroup C. However, the adult female found with the child belonged to haplogroup A. Both haplogroups are common among Native Americans, but the difference shows the adult female was not the child’s mother.
Paranormal researcher Benjamin Radford notes that many people interpret things that are not immediately obvious as mysteries with paranormal connections. He emphasizes that while science fiction ideas are interesting, they should not replace the scientific facts and importance of such discoveries.