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The Starchild skull is an abnormal human skull allegedly found in Mexico that is claimed to be the product of extraterrestrial-human breeding or genetic manipulation. Tests conducted utilizing mtDNA recovered from the skull have established it as human. Experts believe it to be the skull of a child who died as a result of known genetic or congenital abnormalities, such as congenital hydrocephalus.
Discovery
Paranormal researcher Lloyd Pye, the owner of the skull, says he obtained the skull from Ray and Melanie Young of El Paso, Texas, in February 1999. According to Pye, the skull was found around 1930 in a mine tunnel about 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Chihuahua, Mexico, buried alongside a normal human skeleton that was exposed and lying supine on the surface of the tunnel.
Claims
Pye claims that the skull is the hybrid offspring of an extraterrestrial and a human female. According to Pye, a dentist who examined the upper right maxilla found with the skull determined that the skull was that of a child aged 4.5 to 5 years. The volume, however, of the interior of the starchild skull is 1,600 cubic centimeters, which is 200 cm³ larger than the average adult's brain, and 400 cm³ larger than an adult of the same approximate size. The orbits are oval and shallow, with the optic nerve canal situated closer to the bottom of the orbit than to the back. There are no frontal sinuses. The back of the skull is flattened. The skull consists of calcium hydroxyapatite, the normal material of mammalian bone.
Analysis
Steven Novella of Yale University Medical School concludes that the cranium exhibits all of the characteristics of a child who has died as a result of congenital hydrocephalus, and that the cranial deformations were the result of accumulations of cerebrospinal fluid within the skull.
DNA testing
DNA testing in 1999 at BOLD (Bureau of Legal Dentistry), a forensic DNA lab in Vancouver, British Columbia found standard X and Y chromosomes in two samples taken from the skull, "conclusive evidence that the child was not only human (and male), but both of his parents must have been human as well, for each must have contributed one of the human sex chromosomes."
Further DNA testing in 2003 at Trace Genetics, which specializes in extracting DNA from ancient samples, isolated mitochondrial DNA from both recovered skulls. The child belongs to haplogroup C. Since mitochondrial DNA is inherited exclusively from the mother, it makes it possible to trace the offspring's maternal lineage. The DNA test therefore confirmed that the child's mother was a Haplogroup C human female. However, the adult female found with the child belonged to haplogroup A. Both haplotypes are characteristic Native American haplogroups, but the different haplogroup for each skull indicates that the adult female was not the child's mother.
Latest Findings-Star Child DNA is Unusual
Comprehensive List Of Starchild Skull Anomalies:
1. The bone is like no other bone on Earth. Its biochemical signature is much richer in collagen than regular bone, making it more like tooth enamel.
2. The bone is uniformly half as thick, or less, than normal human bone. It is not thin in a specific area or areas due to abnormality, it is thin all over.
3. The skull itself weighs half as much as human skulls of comparable size.
4. The surface of normal human bone is liberally sprinkled with what are called lacunae, which perform the vital function of replacing old bone cells with new ones. Astonishingly, the Starchild bone shows no lacunae.
5. Inside the matrix of the Starchild bone is woven a variety of what we now call “fibers” but which might be something else entirely. All we know is that these fibers are highly durable and completely inexplicable. No other bone known on Earth has anything even approximating such fibers.
6. Inside all bones are cancellous holes. They produce and carry marrow. After death, bacteria scour those holes sparkling clean of all marrow. The Starchild Skull exhibits a reddish residue in many of its cancellous holes. We have no idea what it is, but it, too, is unique among all Earth species.
7. In the front of the Starchild Skull, the mid-face is completely different from a typical human. The entire mid-face is greatly reduced in size.
8. It has no brow ridges, which all primates have. Its forehead is smoothly curved straight down to its upper eye sockets, unlike any higher primate.
9. When a human forehead reaches its upper eye sockets, normally there is a sharp drop down to the pinched-together bones that create the upper nose. In the Starchild there is no drop. The nose extends straight and smooth from the forehead, staying wide and flat until the point where it is broken off. This is wildly different from not just humans, but from all other higher primates.
10. The Starchild Skull’s eye sockets are two of its most unusual features. Normal human eye sockets are 2 inches deep and shaped into rectangles. The Starchild’s are 0.7 inches at maximum depth and curved into ovals.
11. The optic foramens are the openings in the back of a human eye socket which let in the optic nerve and all the other nerves and blood vessels that “feed” each eyeball and allow it to function. Muscles surround each one to make them move in all directions while they remain deep in the sockets.
12. The Starchild’s optic foramens have shifted dramatically downward and inward so they rest against the nose at a position of 5 o’clock. Any human-sized eyeballs attached to them would bulge off the face like frog eyes, a dangerous situation for any child growing up with eyes easy to dislodge.
13. The inner surfaces of the Starchild’s eye sockets appear to any visual inspection to be perfectly smooth. No convolutions can be seen on their surfaces. Yet the sensitive nerve endings of a forefinger can feel distinct convolutions in each eye socket, and each one is exactly the same. Such incredibly precise symmetry is rarely seen in humans, and can only have come from a much different set of genetic instructions than humans get.
14. The Starchild Skull had no frontal sinuses, not even miniscule vestiges. Humans can be born with sinuses reduced to the size of peas, but we have found no report of a human born without any vestige of frontal sinuses.
15. All that remains of the Starchild’s lower face is the right side maxilla. The roof of its mouth was flat, lacking any sign of the human arch, and its size is that of an infant rather than a size appropriate to its cranium size.
16. The Starchild’s zygomatic arches (cheekbones) are broken off, but both ends of the breaks present unusual characteristics. At their bases where they connect to the skull, they fuse at a much tighter angle than humans exhibit.
17. Where the Starchild’s zygomatic arches attach to the eye sockets, rather than folding into the socket itself, as do human zygomatic arches, they break off clean and with a distinct edge. This is a major difference from humans.
18. The chewing muscles that extend up through and under the Starchild’s zygomatic arches fan out to cover an area roughly half the area that normal human chewing muscles cover. This, too, is a significant difference.
19. The Starchild’s foramen magnum (the hole where its spine entered its cranium) is located about 1.5 inches farther forward than where it would be placed in a normal human. This is far beyond the range of normal variation.
20. The Starchild Skull’s ear holes are positioned significantly lower and farther forward than normal human ear holes. This is due in part to being pushed out of position by the extreme flattening of the rear of the head.
21. X-rays have revealed that the Starchild’s inner ears are approximately twice the size of normal human inner ears. We have no idea why this would be the case. Perhaps it required a better balance mechanism that we need.
22. The Starchild’s neck muscles attach in a way that indicates it was a very small neck relative to typical humans, no more than half of normal size. And it is positioned directly under the center of balance of the skull, which is very different from the way a normal human skull rests on its neck.
23. Human neck muscles normally attach at an elevated point in the rear center of the occipital bone. That elevated point is called the “external occipital protuberance,” or “inion” for short. All humans, and indeed all primates on Earth, have an inion. The Starchild Skull does not have one.
24. The external occipital protuberance has a corollary inside the skull, called, not surprisingly, the “internal occipital protuberance.” Inside the Starchild Skull is a version of this that is greatly reduced from normal.
25. Though the rear of the Starchild Skull is widely expanded and greatly flattened, this is not the result of deliberate binding or cradleboarding. It has all of its natural convolutions, which means it grew the way it looks because its genes directed it to grow that way. This seems to be the case with every one of its many variations from normal.
26. At the top of the rear of the Starchild’s head is a noticeable “crease” at the rear of its saggital suture, where it meets the lambdoidal suture. The only possible explanation for such a configuration in a human would be a fusion of the suture. A CAT-scan shows this was not the case with the Starchild.
27. The Starchild Skull’s physical size is of a small adult in the range of 5 feet tall, or an average 12-year-old. Surprisingly, its brain capacity is much larger than a skull that size should contain. A 12-year-old has about 1200 cubic centimeters of brain. An average adult has 1400 c.c. of brain. The Starchild has a whopping 1600 c.c.! We don’t know where it all goes.
28. The Starchild’s expanded parietal bones and the steep angle of the rear of its head strongly indicates that its overly large brain should have pressed its way out of the foramen magnum hole. Yet that didn’t happen, so it seems the Starchild has a brain made of material stronger than normal human brain.
http://www.starchildproject.com/unusuallist.htm
References
- ^ McCoy, Max (November 1999). "Star Child". Fortean Times (127): 42–45.
- "Alien skull' star attraction at Leeds extra-terrestrial conference". Yorkshire Evening Post. 27 June 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
- ^ Feder, Kenneth L. (2010). "Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum". ABC-CLIO. Retrieved March 17, 2011.
- ^ Novella, Steven. "The Starchild Project". The New England Skeptical Society. Retrieved March 17, 2011.
