Mexican TV Personality Jaime Maussan unveiled his latest discoveries. (photo by Tabor Brewster)

At a press conference claiming to reveal two newly-discovered “tridactyl humanoid” creatures in West Hollywood on March 12, Mexican TV personality and longtime alien fraudster Jaime Maussan gathered his team of filmmakers, a lawyer, and so-called experts to deliver an in-depth look into the alleged bodies. According to Maussan, the mummy-like remains could be evidence of life in outer space.

“This is probably the most important story ever,” Maussan said.

Behind him, a screen showed two pictures of the preserved bodies, which have yet to undergo any carbon dating or DNA analysis and suspiciously resemble the aliens of popular fiction. The “discoveries,” dubbed “Santiago” and “Sebastián,” were allegedly found in Peruvian caves. What exactly is this discovery? Maussan and his team couldn’t seem to agree.

“None of the people involved are claiming these are aliens,” filmmaker Michael Mazzola said at the beginning of the press conference. Mazzola tried to make the case that these discoveries could be a new species of humanoid or ancient being, before quickly being contradicted by Maussan.

“I think they could be extraterrestrials,” Maussan said.

Maussan calls himself a “journalist” and is known for pushing debunked claims of alien remains. The list of Maussan’s E.T. hoaxes includes a skinned monkey, dolls made with glue and a “demon fairy” made of bat parts and sticks. He made international headlines in September 2023 when he presented two alleged “non-human” corpses to Mexico’s Congress.

“I am honest. I am ethical. I have never been corrupt,” Maussan assured the audience, unprompted.

Maussan has hosted UFO TV shows and movies, including one called “Maussan’s UFO Files.” But he insists he’s not a ufologist – or even a UFO enthusiast for that matter.

“I am not a ufologist,” Maussan said. “Stop saying that about me.”

The press conference was held to “set the record straight” about the humanoid creatures, but unfortunately for Maussan and his team of truthers, the event did not go as planned. Plagued by technical difficulties and a poor Spanish-English translation, the conference was met with frequent interruptions.

“It seems that somebody tried to hack the signal,” Maussan alleged, frustrated, after the sound cut out on a video presentation.

When the video returned, live feed featured “doctors” in white lab coats examining the bodies and assuring their authenticity. Little information is available about the “experts,” other than the fact that they have worked with Maussan in the past.

“This is not a bunch of people doing strange things,” Maussan said.

At one point, Maussan introduced his lawyer, Rafael Arcangel Berrocal Ramos, who Maussan described as “a top man regarding laws.” From information available online, it appears the “top lawyer in Peru” received his doctorate in political science in 2022 from Atlantic International University – an online school that has been prosecuted in the past for falsely claiming to be an accredited university. It is unclear if Ramos holds a law degree.

Ramos announced a whopping $300 million lawsuit against the government of Peru for discrediting Maussan’s previous findings – bodies which were determined by Peruvian forensic experts to be “dolls assembled with bones of animals from this planet, with modern synthetic glues.”

Maussan asserted that the dolls were not actually his, and he had no idea where they came from. He gave a presentation highlighting the differences between the fakes and the “real” bodies, but evidently had a hard time keeping his story straight. At one point, he mixed up the two sets of bodies and forgot which ones he claimed were fakes and which were real.

Real or fake – where did the bodies come from anyway?

“A grave robber who we bribed to take us to the caves,” Mazzola told me after the conference. “He found them.”

Ufologists, UFO enthusiasts or self-proclaimed “journalists” like Maussan often like to say “the truth is out there,” when it comes to evidence of extraterrestrials. Genuine evidence of life beyond our planet, if it exists, would probably be the most groundbreaking and important discovery in human history. Respected organizations like the SETI Institute at the Carl Sagan Center have been looking for evidence of alien life for decades. But hoaxers like Maussan only muddle the conversation when it comes to the actual scientific search for E.T.s. If the “truth” about alien life is indeed out there somewhere, it was certainly nowhere near West Hollywood on March 12.