Could abnormal skull be from an alien?

A Houma native is on a mission to determine whether an ancient skull is of earthly origin.

The so-called “Starchild skull” is a curiously shaped skull that its curator, paranormal researcher and author Lloyd Pye, has been studying for extraterrestrial descent since it was entrusted to him 14 years ago.

Pye said he believes using a new state-of-the-art tool, the Illumina Genome Sequencer, to retrace the ancient DNA can provide a definitive conclusion about the skull's origin. The price tag for such a test, however, is in the millions of dollars.

Pye, 66, who lives in Florida, claims the skull is roughly 900 years old and was discovered in the 1930s in a Mexican mineshaft. It has garnered a reputation in the paranormal community as the offspring of an extraterrestrial or a genetic mutation.

The skull's physical and genetic irregularities, Pye says, simply contradict too many traits of a human skull, even those affected by medical syndromes such as hydrocephaly or Progeria, which can cause heads to be misshapen.

A DNA test was carried out in 1999 at a forensic teaching laboratory by a group of student geneticists who concluded the Starchild is a human male.

Pye said 1999 was the “Stone Age” for genetic testing and the students badly botched the job.

In 2011, Pye said a new round of DNA testing indicated the Starchild is not the human male from the 1999 test.

Additionally, Pye's website, starchildproject.com, lists names of other medical professionals who allege that the jury is still out on the Starchild case.

Though skeptics remain a constant part of the life of Pye, he said the DNA sequencer test will settle the debate once and for all.

The sequencing process is needed because of the skull's ancient fibers and genomes that aren't intact, Pye said. Given a sample of DNA, the test can determine the order of the four bases of DNA.

Pye plans to make a documentary film about the Starchild and of the DNA procedure as a way of reimbursing sponsors of the costly endeavor.

“It should be one of the most important documentary films ever made, so I think it would make its money back and then some,” Pye said.

It isn't hard to believe aliens have visited Earth before, Pye said, considering the numerous reports of UFO sightings worldwide.

The Colorado-based Mutual UFO Network, which claims to be the largest UFO investigative organization in the world, reported more than 6,000 unidentified flying object sightings last year.

Pye said the problem with these known sightings is that the government, for whatever reason, is suppressing the ongoing phenomenon.

Even with the evidence at hand, Pye said all-too-many scientists tend to dismiss the proof by using “incredible mental gymnastics to come up with any possible explanations they can think of.”

Mary Manhein, head of the LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services, or FACES, Lab, said she recalls examining the skull years ago when Pye had brought it to her.

Manhein still maintains the skull was from a human child with “cranial deformation or reconfiguration.”

“The child might possibly have had something else going on at the same time such as hydrocephalism,” she said. “However, the way in which the back of the skull is flattened suggests a deliberate alteration of the occipital region, perhaps through cradle boarding.”

Cradle boarding was a widespread practice in primitive cultures around the world. Infants were strapped to a board carried on their mothers back, keeping the infant's head immobile to protect its weak neck while the mother worked. Resting against the board gradually deformed the skull's soft bones until the rear was as flat as the board.

Pye's research rules out cradle boarding.

Those with cradle boarding still have an inion — the knob of bone at the lower rear of a human head where neck muscles are attached to the skull, Pye said.

The Starchild skull has no inion, Pye said, and it has a much larger area of flattening.

If the Starchild had ever been cradle boarded, the angle of downward tilt would have been so extreme it would have died much sooner than it did, he said.

Manhein said photos of the skull show extra bones, called wormian bones, which are unusual but not rare.

“These small, extra bones in the suture, or joint lines of the cranium, can occur in various populations, including Native American populations,” she said. “In cranial deformation you can flatten the back, sides and front of the skull — either just one area or multiple areas.”

Though the skull does bear a resemblance to humans, Pye said that is because “life is ubiquitous everywhere.”

“On Earth, everything shares the same ubiquitous life form at its basic level,” he said. “Everything shares that system, and it's how we're all functioning as living beings.”

Pye said he doesn't expect everyone to understand alternative science, but he hopes results from the DNA test can change that.

“Part of what the Starchild will help establish is that the life force on Earth is everywhere,” he said. “Whatever's out there — it's going to be like the bar scene in Star Wars — everything is going to be fundamentally sharing that same life code, which is capable of infinite complexity.”