The true story of the fake "alien mummies" is wilder than actual aliens

All the greed, fraud, centuries of racism, and deteriorated llama skulls behind Mexico’s unboxed aliens (Aja Romano, 'The true story of the fake unboxed aliens is wilder than actual aliens', Vox Sep 16, 2023). The article discsses:

"two recently unboxed 1,000-year-old aliens, revealed to the world by a crew of conspiracists with a history of trying (and failing) to make 1,000-year-old aliens happen.

The Mexican Congress was holding a hearing on the existence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), on Wednesday, September 13 [2023], when the alleged Peruvian aliens were hand-delivered in a dramatic coffin-like box. The box contained a pair of dusty figures with elongated skulls on hose-like necks. They had three fingers instead of the usual five, and bore a faint resemblance to Spielberg’s E.T.

Alas for truthers: These skeletons are not alien life forms. Instead, they are most likely a composite of pre-Columbian human remains and animal bones, all pieced together with some plaster.

But how they aren’t real is a story that’s frankly wilder than aliens.

In fact, these little guys appear to have been literally crowdfunded into existence in 2017 as part of an ongoing attempt to create the illusion that these hucksters are sitting on an ancient alien gold mine. And that’s just the tip of the alien scam iceberg. The full picture includes a long lineup of skeevy con men dedicated to passing themselves off as pseudoscientific “experts,” from media veterans to fake archaeologists and doctors with dubious degrees — all committed to insisting (even as a litany of real scientists line up to object) that their fake aliens are real.

[more here].