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A discredited “ufologist” presented what he claimed were alien remains to Mexico’s congress in an attempt to persuade politicians to declare the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Jaime Maussan said scientists had been unable to identify the bodies, which have supposedly been preserved in a Peruvian mine for a thousand years.
The specimens were brought into the Chamber of Deputies in what appeared to be wooden crates, as representatives held their first ever hearing on UFOs.
Two men removed the lids from the makeshift coffins, revealing two tiny corpses with elongated skulls and three fingers on each hand lying in the heavily padded interiors.
At a later point, legislators were shown X-rays of the bodies which supposedly revealed implants made of rare metals. One was said to have eggs in its stomach.
Speaking under oath, Mr Maussan said scientists at the Autonomous National University of Mexico had tested the corpses’ DNA and found almost a third of it was of an “unknown” origin. The institution has been approached for comment.
However, the television personality is seen as an unreliable figure after making similar claims about five “alien” corpses discovered in Peru in 2017.
Experts later said they were human remains that had been “maliciously manipulated and even mutilated... for commercial exploitation”.
Mr Maussan has also insisted that the body of what is believed to be a mummified Native American child is an alien that crashed on Earth in 1947.
According to Mexican media, Mr Maussan told MPs: “These specimens are not part of our terrestrial evolution… [they] are around a thousand years old, that is, they are not beings that were recovered in ships that crashed.
“Rather, they are beings that were buried in diatom [algae] mines, which desiccates the bodies, does not allow the growth of bacteria or fungi. Therefore it allowed these bodies to be preserved.”
There has been a recent surge in interest surrounding the existence of aliens, with the US Congress last year holding its first UFO hearings since the 1970s.
“Mexico will become the first country in the world to accept the presence of non-humans on the planet,” Mr Maussan declared at a press conference this month.
The hearing was first announced by Mexican representative Sergio Gutiérrez Luna, a friend of the ufologist, who believes it could lead to “legislation on unidentified aerial phenomena”.
He added: “Mexico must put itself at the forefront and listen to all voices and all opinions. I have said it on many occasions, this is the house of the people – Chamber of Deputies. Here everyone is welcome.”
Ryan Graves, a US navy pilot, also spoke to Mexican legislators and suggested there was a stigma against reporting UFO sightings.
In July, he told politicians on Capitol Hill that his squadron had encountered UFOs “pretty much daily”, claiming one craft resembled a “dark grey or black cube inside a clear sphere”.
Nasa will this week release the findings of a study into UFO sightings that it commissioned last year. The Pentagon has received 350 reports of UFOs in the past two years, 171 of which remain unexplained.