Lloyd Pye

Lloyd Pye (1946-) is an American author and researcher largely concerned with an alternative theory of the origin of human life, belonging to a field which he terms "alternative knowledge".

Pye is author of four 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 postulates that humans did not in fact evolve from earlier organisms, but originate (at least partly) from deliberate intervention by extraterrestrial life (an intervention theory).

Life

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 noveles: "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.

Claims and beliefs

In his nonfiction work, Pye focuses on aspects of cryptozoology, especially hominoid cryptids such as bigfoot and yeti. Pye developed these themes in "Everything You Know Is Wrong" in 1998. Here he claims that these animals are Earth's only indigenous bipedal primates, and that early hominids such as Neanderthals and Australopithecines are not intermediates in human evolution.

From this premise, Pye concludes that early hominids could not have been the ancestors of modern humans. Combining his ideas with those of ancient astronaut theorist 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 such 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.

In the late 1990s, Pye obtained a curiously shaped skull from a couple in El Paso, Texas. The skull was reportedly found in a mine tunnel in northern Mexico, and could be that of a child though this is not as yet confirmed. This skull was found buried beside a skeleton of an apparently normal human female 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 (it is without an external occipital protuberance), they are greatly distorted in shape. 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". Pye has subsequently arranged for funding and scientific testing in an attempt to establish the skull's genetic heritage. As described below, these have so far been non-conclusive.

Investigating the skull

Several tests have been performed on the skull at different labs around the world, 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, 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 result to announce that the Starchild was a fully human male child. (This was later proved incorrect in 2003, when subsequent DNA testing by Trace Genetics in California firmly established the BOLD Lab error.) [http://www.starchildproject.com/] .
*Because Pye was unconvinced by the BOLD Lab analysis, he arranged for a more detailed analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from both the skull of the purported Starchild and the adult female skeleton found with it. The results of this analysis from Trace Genetics became available in 2003. Human mtDNA was extracted from both the skull of the purported Starchild and that of the adult female found nearby. Nuclear DNA was also extracted from the adult female in two PCR reactions. The lab reported that both the Starchild Skull and adult female had mtDNA consistent with Native American origin (haplogroup C and haplogroup A, respectively) - excluding a "mother-offspring relationship between the two individuals" [http://www.starchildproject.com/SCSreport.PDF] . This demonstrates that the Starchild's mother was human, as mtDNA is passed to offspring maternally. Pye claims that the lack of nuclear DNA from the Starchild skull but not from the adult supports his hypothesis. [http://www.starchildproject.com/SCSreport.PDF]
*Carbon dating of the skull shows that the skull is likely to be around 900 years old. This is consistent with the owner's apparent Native American origin suggested by the DNA evidence.

Criticism

Pye's ideas have been subject to criticism by the scientific skepticism movement, generally citing a lack of any compelling evidence for the grander claims, and the dubious status of the smaller. One example is the unusual skull mentioned above, which Pye proposes is the product of a human/alien crossbreeding program. Steven Novella of the New England Skeptical Society suggested in 1999 that the odd shape is caused by congenital hydrocephalus, a comparatively common affliction rarely noticed in developed countries due to its ease of treatment. Pye counters that 900 years ago, when the Starchild was born, congenital hydrocephalus would very likely have caused death long before its teeth had a chance to erupt and then be heavily worn by use.

Novella points out that if a child suffered from untreated hydrocephalus until age four or five, their skull would display distortions in almost every feature. All of the proper bones, prominences, holes, and sutures would be present, as they are in the Starchild skull (except for its missing inion on the occipital), but they would be deformed and displaced, as they are in the Starchild skull. Some cases of hydrocephalus can build up over time, so a child with this disorder could survive several years, and if untreated (today hydrocephalus is treatable with surgery to drain the fluid) would probably die at several years of age. However, hydrocephalus would not thin the bone as uniformly as the Starchild's has been thinned throughout its cranium, nor would it produce the high level of symmetry that the Starchild displays. The resulting large bulbous head would be vaguely reminiscent of the typical image of a gray alien. [http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=37]

The concept of (proto) humans interbreeding with aliens has itself been brought into question. All life on earth is remarkably closely related on a molecular biological scale - as demonstrated by the universal role of DNA, RNA, translation, and the genetic code. Although DNA and proteins could be supposed to be prerequisites for any form of complex organic life, the arbitrary nature of the genetic code suggests, but in no way proves, that completely independently evolved alien life would have an entirely different code. Hence, alien "genes" might not be compatible with the human protein expression apparatus, in which case cross breeding could not occur. However, the possibility of in vitro conception between different species remains a possibility. On this subject, Carl Sagan has remarked that during a normal sexual encounter "humans are more likely to interbreed with a petunia" than an alien species.

Furthermore, humans and other organisms are extremely closely related on the genetic scale: for example, humans share between 97% and 99% of their genomic DNA sequence with chimpanzees, and about 30 percent of all human proteins are identical in sequence to the corresponding chimp protein (see Chimpanzee Genome Project). Phylogenetic comparisons of mitochondrial and ribosomal DNA across species ranging from humans to bacteria verify the evolutionary relationships suggested by the fossil record. Current genetic evidence therefore suggests an intimate genetic relationship between humans and other terrestrial organisms, and provides a strong contrary argument to Pye's claims of alien interbreeding. Pye counters by saying that humans have only 46 chromosomes, while all other higher primates have 48, which does not sound to him like natural evolution at work. This has recently been explained as the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes, see Ken Miller.

[
mitochondrial DNA sequences from humans, Neandertals and chimps demonstrates the relatedness of all three species, and the intermediacy of Neandertals.] Pye's claims that Neandertals and other early hominids were not related to humans is also viewed skeptically by the scientific community. Extraction of mitochondrial DNA from the original German Neandertal fossil, and comparison to modern humans and chimpanzees (Krings "et al", Cell 1997) demonstrated that the Neandertal sequence was effectively intermediate between humans and chimps. Moreover, Neandertals were sufficiently different from them to be recognised as a separate species.

A number of the supposedly unanswered mysteries that Pye poses in his book "Everything You Know Is Wrong" have also been criticised. For example:
* Pye claims "humans use only about 10% of our massively supercharged brains". Science contends that this long-standing myth originated with phrenology [http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth2] . Brain imaging methods appear to refute the 10% brain use statement. For example, positron emission tomography (PET) scans show that much of the brain is active during many different tasks [http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth3] . Pye claims that because savants show such a wide range of astounding mental gifts, those gifts must be present in all human brains, but "something" keeps those areas from being accessed in normal circumstances.
* Pye claims that the human genetic array as it exists today is "only 150,000 to 200,000 years old". In fact, certain human genes such as those encoding histones are common to all eukaryotes and identical to many other primates' histone genes, and are more than 1.8 billion years old.

ee also

*Creation-Evolution controversy

Books

* Everything You Know is Wrong - Book One: Human Evolution
* The Starchild Skull

External links

* [http://www.lloydpye.com/ Lloyd Pye's website]
* [http://www.starchildproject.com Lloyd Pye's Starchild Project]
* [http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=37 A skeptical look at Lloyd Pye's Starchild]