Summary: Lloyd Pye is tentatively scheduled to join us this Sunday night to update us on the most recent news regarding the DNA testing of the alleged "Star Child Skull." Lloyd Pye (1946-) is an American author and researcher who proposes an alternative theory of the origin of human life set within a field he terms "alternative knowledge." Pye is the author of multiple books, including Everything You Know Is Wrong - Book One: Human Origins. He also conducts original research into his theories, gives lectures, and has made television appearances on The Learning Channel, National Geographic Channel, Extra, Animal Planet, and The Richard and Judy Show in the United Kingdom. In his work he rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans evolved from earlier organisms; instead he asserts that the human race originated at least partly from deliberate intervention by extraterrestrial life (an "Ancient astronaut" claim). His ideas have been criticized for the meager and dubious evidence he cites in support of them. Pye was born in Houma, Louisiana. He studied psychology at Tulane University in New Orleans, before joining the U.S. Army as a military intelligence specialist. In addition to his other works, Pye has written two novels: A Darker Shade of Red, based on his college football career at Tulane and Mismatch, a high-tech thriller about "phone phreaking", computer hacking, and submarine warfare. Pye focuses on aspects of cryptozoology, especially hominoid cryptids such as Bigfoot and Yeti. In his book Everything You Know Is Wrong he claims that these animals are Earth's only indigenousbipedalprimates, and that early hominids such as Neanderthals and Australopithecines are not intermediates in human evolution. From this premise, Pye claims that early hominids could not have been the ancestors of modern humans, denying the established scientific consensus supporting common descent.[1] Combining his ideas with those of ancient astronaut believer Zecharia Sitchin, he proposes an alternative model for the origin of Homo sapiens - that of deliberate planting by alien beings, or of interbreeding with extraterrestrials. Pye hypothesises that the first modern human peoples were the ancient Sumerians, whom he claims had knowledge of aspects of modern astronomy such as the existence of Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. The "Starchild skull" in the 1990's, Pye obtained a curiously shaped human child's skull from a couple in El Paso, Texas. The skull was reportedly found in a mine tunnel in northern Mexico, buried beside a skeleton of a morphologically typical human female adult lying exposed on the floor of the mine tunnel. The unusual skull has an enlarged though symmetrical cranium, and while it contains most of the complement of normal human bones, they are greatly distorted in shape, as for instance it is without an external occipital protuberance. Carbon 14 dating shows that the skull is 900 years old + or - 40 years. Pye proposes that the abnormal skull is the product of a human/alien crossbreeding program. He refers to this being as a "Starchild" and the skull as the "Starchild skull". Pye has subsequently arranged for funding and scientific testing in an attempt to demonstrate that the skull's genetic heritage is extraterrestrial. Several tests have been performed on the skull at different labs, most funded by Pye and his supporters. Tests have included CAT scans, X-rays, radiocarbon dating by carbon 14, bone scans, scanning electron microscope analysis, mitochondrial DNA analysis, and nuclear DNA recovery. In 1999, a chromosomal analysis of the skull was attempted by the BOLD Laboratory in Vancouver. This analysis showed that the skull's nuclear DNA responded slightly to an amelogenin primer. At only 200 picograms of DNA recovered, it was well under the usual minimum recovery value of 1000 picograms needed to make a reliable determination. However, the BOLD lab felt sufficient confidence in their(continued)
