A couple who wishes to remain anonymous has come into possession of a pair of skulls, one clearly human, the other markedly divergent from the human norm. The anomalous skull has undergone preliminary analysis by several specialists in human anatomy and physiology. These specialists include two anthropologists, two radiologists, two pathologists, and another half-dozen experts in various disciplines. The purpose of this web site is to discuss their combined analyses and opinions. The information listed below contains only the preliminary analysis results. Much more testing needs to be performed.

Overview:

The story of how the two skulls were discovered is assumed to be true, although it cannot be verified. As related, 60 to 70 years ago in a primitive area south of Chihuahua, Mexico, a young girl (15 to 18) defied a parental dictate and went exploring in an abandoned mine shaft (or possibly a cave). At the bottom of the shaft she found a complete human skeleton lying on the surface. Sticking up out of the ground beside it was a malformed skeletal hand entwined in one arm of the human skeleton. She dug up the buried skeleton and found it much smaller than the human skeleton, and it appeared to her to also be somewhat malformed. Unfortunately, she did not specify to any greater degree what the body "malformations" might have been.

The girl put the bones of both skeletons into a basket and took them to a place near her home, hiding them behind a large tree because she did not want her parents to know she had found and taken them. A few days later a torrential rainstorm washed away all the bones except the skulls, which she recovered and kept for the remainder of her life. Upon her death, the skulls were passed to an American, who maintained possession for five years before passing them to the American couple now in control of them.

Skull #1, (Mystery Skull):

This individual died at 3 to 5 years old, based on points of anatomical reference such as the suturing of the skull bones. The so-called "soft spot" had only recently filled in, making it 3 years plus, while a small piece of upper palate assumed to be a detached part of the skull contains "baby teeth," which indicates less than 6 years of age. The face is missing from the upper bridge of the nose to the base of the cranium, but the skull and both eye sockets are intact.

This skull's degree of humanity is at issue because several aspects of its morphology defy categorizing as congenital malformation or inflicted deformity.

Skull #2, (Human Skull):

This is a human adult skull lacking a lower jawbone but with upper dentition intact. It is assumed to be Amerindian because the back of the skull shows a typical degree of flattening which results from being carried on a cradle board in infancy. Tooth wear indicates an age between 20 and 30 years at time of death, and a somewhat smallish size indicates a possible female.

General Parameters:

Both skulls are approximately the same size, roughly 15 centimeters at their widest points, 15 cm from front to back, and 15 cm from top to bottom. This congruence in size is not exceptional because human brains grow explosively from birth to age six, reaching nearly adult size at that point, while faces continue to grow through puberty. Despite having the same approximate brain volume, the design of the skulls encasing those brains could not be more divergent.

The adult is a normal human in all respects. She has a slight brow just above the eye sockets, and a noticeable, across-the-forehead "dent" just above the brow line that is typical of children strapped to a cradle board during infancy and early youth. This correlates to the flattened, softball-sized area at the back of her head. The child, on the other hand, has a forehead minus any hint of a brow, which is typical of skulls at that age, but it shows no sign whatever of being held against a cradle board by means of a strap across the forehead. If anything, the child's forehead bulges slightly outward and then angles rearward to the upper eye sockets and the bridge of the nose.

Beside and behind the eye sockets of the adult are typically concave temporal areas (temples) and gently flaring parietal areas (above the ears) that sweep into the curved arc of the occipital area at the back of the head. The child is completely different. There is an almost immediate outward flare from beyond the eye sockets into a quite drastic outward bulge in the parietal areas. These bulging parietals do not sweep around into the occipital, they curve at a rather sharp angle to accommodate a flattening of the occipital that is both startling to behold and difficult to explain in physiological terms. This remarkable degree of flattening in the occipital area may or may not be a direct cause of the greatly expanded parietal areas.

When asked if any known pathology could cause such an unusual cranial formation, no expert could think of a likely example. There were no apparent signs of hydrocephaly (water on the brain), of accelerated decrepitude (premature aging of children), or any other disease that might plausibly cause such an aberration. The two anthropologists were certain that such a high degree of rear-skull deformity could only have resulted from some version of the cranial binding practiced by primitive cultures around the world.

Such binding practices inevitably require both front and back or side and side binding to exert enough pressure to permanently deform skull bones. This skull shows no sign at all of front binding, yet the rear area is more drastically deformed than any example seen in case books. Furthermore, the surface of the flattened area is not exactly "flat." It has convolutions and nodules, and both to touch and to vision it is clear that no truly flat planes exist on the surface. This would indicate that some force other than binding (i.e. a natural design) must have caused its extensive deformation.

Apart from its irregular surface, the deformity's area extends from well above the occipital bone, at the very apex of the crown, down to only a centimeter or two (depending on how the measurement is taken) from its connecting point with the spine. This incredible nearness to the spine is well beyond the depth of flattening achievable by normal skull binding. Indeed, it would seem impossible to achieve such a depth of flattening by any application of external pressure. This apparent impossibility was explained by the anthropologists as "due to some additional pathology" they could not readily specify.

While the anthropologists' "head-binding" explanation is plausible enough to pound a very square peg into the round hole of conventional thinking, it presupposes that the flattened occipital bone came first, forcing the parietals to expand outward as a result. But what if the parietal bulges came first? What if the design of this particular skull was such that the parietals flared out and made room for the brain parts that would be contained in a typically rounded occipital area? If this were the case, then the rear of the skull might be drawn forward and upward, perhaps even to the drastic degree evidenced in this skull, in order to keep the cranium balanced over its pivot point, the spinal column.

Whether the expanded parietals or the flattened occipital came first, the combination of the two effects has produced an utterly unique "wedge-shaped" cranium that, despite its high degree of skew from the norm, seems to have supported a viable being to the age of four or five.

Symmetry:

Another consistent problem faced by the experts was trying to explain the skull's high degree of overall symmetry. In every aspect it seems well put together, if not designed to look as it does, yet it is so far beyond the human norm that the experts could only conclude it had to result from some congenital pathology not yet seen or remembered by any of them. Usually such pathology will cause distinct bilateral asymmetry, along with other distortions, so it is highly unusual that such a wildly aberrant cranium would nonetheless exhibit such startling symmetry throughout.

The Face:

Though missing from the bridge of the nose down to the base of the skull, the face of the child can be projected as such. The piece of detached maxilla and palate can be placed into the space where it seems to fit, which gives a clear sense of how small it is in relation to the adult. What cannot be determined is whether its overall size is normally small, unusually small, or even unusually large for a child.

The Eyes:

Along with the skull's unexpected symmetry and the unprecedented flattening of its occipital bone, the unusual nature of its eye sockets were most disconcerting to the experts. Like their well-developed brains, the eyes of infants and youngsters are nearly the size they will be in adulthood. Normal human eyes have a recessed conical shape with an optic nerve canal at the inner rear quadrant of the cone. In the adult skull the point of greatest eye depth is 5.0 centimeters, while in the child the point of greatest depth is only 3.0 centimeters. In addition to extreme shallowness of the sockets, the optic nerve canals are skewed downward and inward in a manner that makes normal eyeball mobility highly unlikely and might have required that visual tracking be done by head movement rather than eye movement.

One possibility is that such eyes were blind. Another is that they bulged out of their sockets (a common condition in certain thyroid pathologies). The experts felt the eyes were far enough from normal to have been negatively impacted by whatever pathology had caused the gross distension of the parietal areas and the distinctive flattening of the occipital area. However, the sockets themselves appear well-formed, so it seems equally possible that the eyes they contained saw quite well and may even have processed optical input more efficiently because of the altered locations of the optic nerve canals.

The Teeth:

A small, fully detached piece of maxilla shows every indication of being part of the child's skull and is assumed to be so. This piece contains two so-called "baby teeth," which indicates an age of less than six years at time of death. Fluoroscopic examination (a video x-ray) reveals permanent teeth impacted above the baby teeth. Everything about the baby teeth and the impacted permanent teeth appears normal for a child aged four or five at time of death.

The Ears:

The ear canals are clearly visible on both sides of the child's skull. They seem normal in shape and size and angle of entry into the skull. They are placed substantially lower in the skull than is normal, but that distortion can be and must be attributed to the extreme distortion caused by the rear-skull flattening. There is no way to know if an external ear was present or what it may have looked like, although the assumption is that a human-like appendage was probably present.

The Sinuses:

When the initial fluoroscopic examination was carried out on both skulls, the doctors were amazed to discover the child had no visible sinus cavities, vestigial or otherwise. This caused considerable excitement on the parts of those who felt the child might be a human-alien hybrid, because lack of sinuses seemed to be a definitive marker for non-Earth origins. However, subsequent consultation with experts revealed that lack of sinuses, while extremely rare, is not unknown among either humans or primates. So while this trait may yet turn out to be significant in terms of human-alien hybridization, at this point it cannot be used in direct support of that theory.

The Foramen Magnum:

The foramen magnum is the hole at the base of the skull where the spinal cord connects with the brain. In a typical adult human this hole is positioned slightly rear of center, with the dense aspects of the rear skull (the occipital area containing the cerebellum) and the brain tissue above it counterbalanced with the smaller forebrain and the typically sinus-filled front face area.

Because of the extreme widening and flattening of the child's rear skull, its foramen magnum is now placed much nearer to a central point that is more equally balanced between the face and forebrain, and the rear brain areas. What cannot be determined is whether this shift in f.m. location was required by the necessities of maintaining balance while walking (we can only assume the child could walk normally), or was the f.m. location shifted in the process of widening and flattening the back of the head. It is a chicken-egg conundrum that has no obvious answer at this point.

Information Regarding Necks:

In a typical human skull, the neck attachments begin at the bump in the middle of the occipital bone. This bump is called the occiput, and from it the neck muscles, ligaments, and tendons sweep out in a well-defined semicircle that converges at the foramen magnum, the hole in the skull that connects it to the spinal column. The distance from occiput to foramen magnum averages from 5 to 6 centimeters. In the anomalous skull, this pattern is completely altered and its size is drastically reduced. Instead of a curved semicircle of neck attachments there is only a shallow, flattened arc that extends from occiput to foramen at about 3 centimeters, only half of a normal human&rsquos. This means the neck supporting the anomalous skull would be only about half as wide and half as thick as a normal human neck. Perhaps coincidentally, such thin necks are consistently described as hallmarks of certain alien types (grays) and of alien-human hybrids described by abductees.

Human-Alien Hybrids:

A growing body of testimony by abductees and contactees alleges that aliens (most often the so-called "grays") are conducting experiments that produce hybrids between themselves and humans. Abductees and contactees who claim to have seen the results of these alleged unions consistently describe them as looking far more human than alien, but with outsized heads that bulge in the parietal areas and contain eyes that appear larger and rounder than usual, with larger pupils. The same can be said for the thin neck mentioned above.

The consistency of this testimony regarding hybrids is what gives the skull in question its strongest cachet of authenticity. It clearly exhibits several of the physical characteristics described by abductees and contactees, particularly the stark bulges in its parietal areas and the shallowness of its eye sockets, which may well have given its eyeballs apparent extra size and luminosity.

The Starchild Legend:

In the area of Mexico where the pair of skulls was supposedly found, there exists a legend of long standing (at least two centuries if not more). This legend states that on a regular basis "Star Beings" come down from the sky and impregnate females in the isolated villages that populate the region. The women are allowed to carry the so-called "starchildren" to term, and then to raise them for a varied period of a few to several years. Ultimately, the Star Beings return to collect their progeny and remove them to the heavens. This legend forms the basis of a story that certain human "sensitives" have been able to glean from actual contact with the skull. These sensitives range from clairvoyants to remote viewers.

The Sensitives' Tale:

The feeling of the sensitives is that the adult skeleton found by the girl was a female of child-bearing age. The child was hers. It was also an alien-human hybrid created by a union between the female and one of the Star Beings that occasionally visited her area. Its age was five or six, with indeterminate sex that tended to give off female energy, either an outright female or a strongly feminine male.

The feeling is that the mother had been notified that the Star Beings were returning to take her child from her. She was panic-stricken and filled with dread, what one remote viewer called "white-knuckle time." She took her young child and fled her village, seeking refuge in the hidden mine shaft. There, with great sadness but grim determination, she killed her child and buried it, leaving one of its hands out of the ground to hold onto. Then she took a fatal dose of poison and laid down beside her child to die.

Obviously, this scenario closely fits the story related by the Mexican woman who found the skeletons more than half a century ago. However, it can be and will be argued that the scenario of the sensitives has been concocted to fit the story rather than the other way around. But even if the sensitives had not been made aware of the details of the discovery before they did their work (and in some cases they were not), these objections would be raised. For those who choose to do so, it will always be easy to denigrate or dismiss both the Mexican woman's story and the sensitives' analysis of the artifacts.

Conclusion:

Because of the story behind the discovery of the skulls, and its chilling interpretation, there may be a tendency to conclude it is fundamentally true. This would be a mistake because there is simply not enough verifiable evidence to warrant across-the-board support. However, it would be equally foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water (pun not intended) because of the substantial amount of viable evidence that seems to corroborate the story. Indeed, one can argue that it lacks only a smoking gun of undeniable proof.

The elements in its favor are these:

�The long-standing Starchild legend of the Chihuahua region of Mexico provides a plausible (though unprovable) mechanism for how a highly deformed skull might have been biologically created rather than physically manipulated by deliberate deformation.

�Such an immense degree of deformation across the entire occipital (rear) and parietal (side) areas of the skull simply could not be created by deliberate means without concomitant deformation being visible in the frontal (front) area, which is not evident.

�Natural deformations (so-called "birth defects") across the entire occipital and parietal areas, while not entirely impossible, seem highly unlikely because of the remarkable symmetry exhibited in all areas of the skull, including those effected by the deformations.

�The deformation extends from the crown area of a normal head to very near the connection of the skull with the spine, an area impossible to reach by mechanical means (any binding device) due to the thick neck muscles (even in a young child) that surround and support the skull-spine connection.

�All of the above argues eloquently for a "natural" interpretation of the skull's utterly unique design.

�The most "acceptable" natural interpretation would be congenital pathology across the entire rear portion of the skull. Less acceptable but perhaps more plausible is that it resulted from a human-alien hybridization in which a so-called "gray" type brought to the mating a skull shape widely known to be similar to the mystery skull.

�The purported age of the mystery skull predates all modern descriptions of UFO's, "grays," or the starchildren that are alleged to be the result of human-alien hybridization. In other words, the skull was in existence long before "unacceptable" theories existed to explain its oddities. Therefore, no one can legitimately argue that this is a case of designing a theory to fit circumstances.

�Modern tales of human-alien hybridization, which are clearly predated by the skull, most often depict offspring with many of the physical attributes undeniably visible in the mystery skull, (small faces; large, dome-like upper craniums; overly large eyes; thin necks).

�While testimony about human-alien hybrids is flatly unacceptable to mainstream science, there are enough threads of consistency running through it to make it difficult to dismiss entirely.

�This, too, argues eloquently for an "unacceptable" interpretation of the skull's remarkable design.

The arguments against a possible alien connection to the skull are few but powerful:

�Pathology is the standard explanation for any human-like skull that does not fit the "normal" mold.

�In the hands of establishment scientists, pathology can be made to cover virtually any deviation.

�In truth, a combination of extraordinary pathological disorders IS a possible explanation for the many aberrations evident in the mystery skull.

�In the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, establishment science will contend that the mystery skull is a result of nothing more than pathological defects.

�This opinion will always dominate any others because of the combined academic credentials of those who will profess it.

In short, the mystery skull will always be suspect in the eyes of establishment science even though its highly unusual characteristics should demand an open-minded view toward it. There is no doubt it can be nothing more than a severely malformed human with a combination of deformities never before seen by the specialists consulted. With equal certainty it could indeed be the result of a human-alien union. But at this point there is no apparent way to definitively settle the issue.

Believe it if you want to, don't if you don't. However, be aware that a DNA test is due in April, and that test might provide a final solution to the mystery. Unfortunately, this too is not a certainty. The DNA test may well be able to tell if the child was definitively human and nothing but human. It may also be able to tell if there is any "stray" DNA floating around in its chromosomes. However, it may not be able to do more than indicate further detailed testing is appropriate. Perhaps none of these issues will be settled conclusively.

In the end, it may come down to each of us believing what we want to believe about it.

Ultimate Disclosure:

Every effort will be made to make evidence available as it is finalized, and in some cases perhaps before finalization if any trends appear compelling. A firm deadline for ultimate disclosure has been set. This will occur during "The Ancient Wisdom Conference" in Cairo, Egypt, from May 9 to May 18 of this year, 1999. Anyone attending the conference will witness a formal presentation of the skull itself and all the data that has been generated by the research into it. This presentation will be made against the stunning backdrop provided by the monuments of the Giza plateau the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids which will provide an event of epic proportions. Even without the skull presentation, The Ancient Wisdom Conference will be one of the year's best for those wishing to acquire knowledge currently considered "unacceptable."

A Final Plea:

Inasmuch as the mystery skull could ultimately prove to be the most important artifact in human history, much more testing should be done to prove or disprove its origins. All such testing and investigative research is expensive, and in some cases exceedingly so. Costs have already soared into the multiple thousands of dollars, which has come directly from the few researchers involved at this point. Much more will be needed to perform the wide array of tests and investigations necessary to provide definitive proof (if indeed definitive proof will ever be possible).

Tests to consider are: highly specific DNA comparisons between humans and possibly primates; endocranial analysis of the mystery skull to provide a glimpse of its brain surface; Carbon 14 dating to establish its true age; a facial reconstruction to the extent that is possible; highly detailed laser-scanned models for individual scientists to examine; and research into the geographic area where the skulls were supposedly found, among many others.

The bottom line is that the researchers involved have already given until it hurts. Now many others will have to contribute to the cause in order to carry this important, perhaps world-changing research to the lengths it so clearly warrants. In order to facilitate tax-deductible contributions, arrangements have been made for a non-profit income channel, "The Starchild Project," through The Truth Seeker Foundation of San Diego, California. If you can contribute anything at all to this potentially crucial cause, please send a tax-deductible check to:

The Starchild Project, C/O The Truth Seeker Foundation, P.O. Box 28550, San Diego, CA 92190