These Alien-Looking Skulls Are Actually Human, Expert Says

Nothing to see here, folks.

Cone Heads

A viral Facebook post is claiming that strange-looking skulls found in Peru are evidence of alien life, USA Today reports.

But fortunately — or disappointingly, depending on your frame of reference — the skulls are almost certainly from plain-old human beings.

"The eye sockets are normal and perfectly within the range of human variation and look like eye sockets of other human skulls from Peru," University of Wyoming anthropology professor Melissa Murphy told the newspaper.

Big Headed Astronaut

The skulls do indeed look unusual. A YouTube video shared alongside the viral Facebook post shows a variety of skulls with elongated crowns that are admittedly somewhat reminiscent of pop-culture aliens.

But the reality is distinctly terrestrial, Murphy told USA Today. Ancient people in what is now Peru, she said, had a long history of using binding techniques to coax human skulls into unusual shapes.

"Deliberate head shaping is a form of cultural modification of the body that marks different things, like one’s identity, a rite of passage, [or] an occupation," she told the paper.

READ MORE: Fact check: Elongated skulls in Peru are human, not alien, expert says [USA Today]

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