Many readers will have seen the slick video report about an alleged “new species” mummy found in Peru.

This is a well-done video by Gaia TV, sure to appeal to the gullible. Lots of folks with white masks saying sciencey things (i.e., speculating with big words). Some of them even have degrees (which makes me wonder why no one let them use an actual lab for the “examination” — instead they did that on a roof top). Maybe some degree programs in science don’t use labs, or teach their grad students that lab conditions aren’t necessary for sound analysis. Oh, we get a CAT scan, too … one that honestly doesn’t show much. As if that can tell us anything (think about it — it’s going to detect skeletal structure and whatever is stretched over that, but not what any of that is made of, or the genetic profile). The specimen is of course unprovenanced (the video shows where it was purportedly found, but no actual extraction from said location). And conveniently there are three-fingered glyphs nearby. But I’m sure they didn’t find the glyphs first and them make a specimen to match after the fact. No, they wouldn’t do that …

Let me go out on a limb and say this will turn out to be a fake. All I really needed to know is that Jaime Maussan is at the center of it. (He of “Roswell slides” infamy — at least that was the last one). Here’s another Maussan hoax.

The Black Vault offers a succinct summary of some problems with the “specimen.” Here’s another one from Doubtful News.

I’m referenced in the Doubtful News piece. I had send them the link to the video the morning it appeared (not surprisingly, in my In Box). I offered my suggestions on how this could be faked (at least how I’d do it, based on the sort of chicanery that I suspected was behind the “demon fairy” silliness). Doubtful News didn’t get into the “how,” which I appreciate. It’ll be fun to see if I got at least some part of method right once this turns out to be a fraud. The Black Vault piece states the first and most obvious issue — this doesn’t look much like Peruvian mummies (there are a good number of them). It looks like a plaster cast … the creativity will be in what’s under the plaster.