STARCHILD
UPDATE
June 17, 2003
Everyone:
[As
usual, please share the following with any individual or website that
might find it of use or interest.]
We're
in the home stretch with the Starchild now and seem to be in surprisingly
good shape. The geneticists have completed two full testing runs that have
yielded results that are definitive in certain ways. The human skull (found
with the Starchild skull) recorded perfectly in Test # 1 for both mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nDNA). It's mtDNA showed it was a female who
belonged to what geneticists call Haplogroup A, a common type of
Meso-American (natives of North or South America). Her nuclear DNA has not
been analyzed in depth because that is pointless for our purposes. We have
known all along she is a normal human, so there is no reason to explore beyond
her relationship to the Starchild.
As
for that relationship, genetically it does not exist. The first glimpse
of the Starchild's mtDNA came out unclear and indicated it might be European
in origin. The assumption was that such an outcome must have resulted from
some kind of contamination, so a second test was authorized. Test # 2 did
indeed come through as hoped, and the Starchild's mother was determined to
be a human female from Haplogroup C, another common type of Meso-American.
So now there are a few things we can say with confidence.
The
Starchild and the female who died with it were not genetically
related, so no "mother-child" relationship existed. This is no surprise because for
some time we have known the Starchild was not actually a child when it died, making a
mother-child scenario unlikely, though still possible. It is also no surprise
that the Starchild's mother was a human (again, mtDNA passes down only
through females) because we assumed all along that if indeed it is a human-alien
hybrid, the human part of its parentage would be its mother. So
far, so good.
The
problem with Test # 2 was that no sign of nuclear DNA was present. This
would be alarming if the geneticists hadn't endured such a difficult
struggle to recover the mtDNA. Clearly the recovery process had limitations,
which the geneticists now believe they understand. They were not
using effective techniques for recovery. They went with what they knew....the
protocols they normally used....but those didn't work well on the
Starchild's extraordinary bone.
You
might recall from previous updates that the Starchild bone is significantly
tougher than normal bone, even though it is half as thick and weighs half
as much. This puzzled the geneticists from the beginning (actually, it
puzzles all of us), but because they were working without a
precedent, they made no allowance for it in the protocols they employed to
recover its DNA. They assumed what they did with "normal"
human bone would work with this bone, too, but it proved to barely work at
a markedly sub-par level. Now they realize they are up against something
a bit more than highly unusual, so they intend to attack it from other, less
obvious angles.
In
the first two tests they followed protocol and treated it like ordinary human
bone. For Test # 3 they intend to treat it on its own terms. They will take
a larger sample and reduce it down to its component parts by grinding
it to powder. Now, before balking at that idea the way I did, understand
that this technique is typically used on fossilized bone
that is essentially stone, which reveals a lot about the Starchild's
"durability" (the word they keep using for it). The bone's unusual
durability must be overcome, and grinding it to powder is a way to do
it.
In
hindsight, it's easy to suggest they should have tried that in the first place.
However, recall that they had no precedent for this bone's hardness,
and its weight is nothing like stone. They were fooled, plain and
simple, into believing the normal protocols should suffice. The point is that
now they will be able to tackle Test # 3 with every confidence of
recovering good mtDNA to verify Test # 2's finding of Haplogroup C, and then
hopefully recover some nuclear DNA, which is what we've been after all along.
We have very high hopes that Test # 3, which is underway as these words are
written, will bring the conclusion we all anticipate--a glimpse of the
Starchild's father's DNA.
The
results are predicted to be available in the middle of July. I am scheduled
to speak in Los Angeles on both July 15th and July 16th, for Los Angeles MUFON
on the 15th and Orange County MUFON on the 16th. Whatever the results, I should
be able to reveal and discuss them during those evenings. Anyone in the L.A.
area who is interested in attending should contact either of those MUFON groups.
After that, I will post an update like this as soon as I return home to New
Orleans, which will be by car so it will be in the latter part of July.
Of course, if we hit a home run with it there could well be a press conference
to make that known.
Here
is a good place to discuss possibilities. If they recover nuclear DNA, we
have a few options to consider. I will let the geneticists' words speak
here so you get a glimpse of the complexities involved:
"Provided
we get evidence of nuclear DNA, we have a few options for where to go with
nuclear DNA tests. If an amelogenin test (a nuclear DNA test that can
assess the sex of a sample) indicates that it is male, we would like to test
for a Native American specific marker on the Y-chromosome. If it shows
evidence of nuclear DNA, but not of possessing a Y-chromosome, we'll have
to explore other options. One is to do a forensic panel and see if there
are any anomalies relative to a normal Native American sample. That
would likely reveal if something weird was going on in the shortest order.
If there was an anomalous result (eg, every gene examined had only one allele
or an allele not otherwise found in Native Americans) at that point, we'd
have to design something additional to try to identify the source of the anomaly."
In
short, we are deep into the process of getting to the bottom of this
mystery. If it's male, things move in one direction. If it's female, they
move in another. And by the way, the "male" reported by the Canadian
forensic lab is now looking highly unlikely as a valid result. That lab was
not really geared to working with ancient DNA and got three invalid results
before barely squeaking out a fourth. This lab is one of the best in this
country and they are struggling with it, too, so they don't think any forensic
lab could have gotten a valid result. They don't imply there was anything
deliberate on the part of the first lab, just a misreading that is quite
easy to make.
As
you all can see from the above, much work has been done in our behalf. I was
profoundly impressed to sit with them and view page after page after page--I
think it was about two dozen--showing polaroid photos of the gel sheets they
have used to record the various primer tests to seek out the mitochondrial
differences that revealed the two skulls' Haplogroups. Incredibly detailed,
incredibly precise. I won't bother you with the nuts and bolts of it, but
the depth of their effort is astounding. It moved me deeply to sit there
soaking it all in.
A
personal note here: I try hard to maintain a detached, scientific demeanor
as I move through this process because I feel that's how it should
be handled. I try to stay evenhanded and balanced in everything I do in this
regard, which has kept me from depression when my efforts were for
naught, and from euphoria when things finally started moving my
way. But don't think I'm immune to the emotional highs and lows that
come with trying to meet this profound obligation. Every so often I am
stunned by the fact that, for whatever reason, Fate has allowed me to represent
all of you at the center of this amazing, incredible endeavor that could--if
things go our way--change history forever. And even if things go "wrong"
for our side, it will forever change our current understanding of human
morphology.
It
really is a win-win situation, although it won't feel that way if
we come up short. Nevertheless, we have to do our best to keep foremost in
our minds that we are making history, one way or the other. Of course,
the upside for us now is that the "durability" of the bone is making
a purely human result more and more unlikely. We can still come up short,
but I'm feeling more confident of a positive outcome than I ever have
before. We could well be in position to hit that home run I mentioned earlier.
We only have a few more weeks to wait.
In
the meantime, money remains an issue, so please be aware that I
still have videotapes of my London presentation available for anyone who contributes
at least $100 to the Starchild Fund. I hate to be so crass about it, but you
can surely tell from the above that much is happening that was not anticipated
at the start of the process. I'm not complaining, I knew going in that this
could happen, but the facts are the facts.
For
those interested, the videotape is 2 hours and 10 minutes of a slide-supported
lecture on origins of life, human origins, hominoids, and the best evidence
supporting the Starchild as a possible human-alien hybrid.
I
hope you all can feel the ticking of the clock as strongly as I do. We're
near the end of a long, tough gauntlet.
Lloyd
P.S.
Contributions can be sent through PayPal or in checks made out to The
Starchild Fund, c/o:
Lloyd
Pye
6805
Veterans Blvd.
Metairie, LA 70003
That's
the Metairie Branch of Bank One at 8923 Veterans Blvd., Metairie, LA
70003