If you’ve watched Ancient Aliens or read Erich von Däniken’s Chariot of the Gods, you may be convinced that earth has been visited by industrious extraterrestrials over the millennia. But if aliens were indeed responsible for ancient architecture, did any of them collapse from exhaustion and leave their skeletons for us to unearth?
Elongated skulls found frequently in Peru in other parts of the world have led some to believe they’re alien in origin. And not just Harrison Ford and Shia LeBouf in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Reports of DNA tests with findings not originating from this planet have circulated around the Internet and offered ancient alien theorists ammunition for their argument. So could they belong to the big-headed aliens typically called the “Grays”?
Curious as they may be, elongated or shaped skulls have long been understood to be entirely terrestrial. In fact, they date back 45,000 years to the Neanderthals. The process begins at infancy when the skull is still pliable. For example, on the island of Tomman in the South Pacific, a mother would put a bonnet woven from human hair and soaked in oil over her baby’s head. A basket woven from coconut fiber would be placed atop the bonnet, and the mother would pull the strands of the basket tighter, bit by bit each day, until the skull could be shaped no more. As a 1921 article explained, long before anyone considered elongated skulls to be extraterrestrial, “When the little Tommanite is about a year old, he emerges from his wrappings with a beautifully elongated, pointed skull, the pride of his mother.”
The Mangbetu tribe in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s remote northern region has also traditionally considered the misshapen skull a symbol of beauty and prestige. Some continue the practice to this day. Modern or ancient, their skulls’ DNA is entirely human.
This story was originally written for my book WE ARE NOT ALONE: The Extraordinary History of UFOs and Aliens Invading Our Hopes, Fears, and Fantasies (Quirk Books).
