The conspiracy theorists are sure to go wild over this one, and sounding like a plot of Independence Day, Men in Black, The X-Files, or any number of sci-fi outings, a new study claims to have found 'alien' DNA in a group of people who are convinced they were abducted.
While it's said we know more about outer space than we do about our own oceans, the cosmos is a largely uncharted place that we'll never be able to fully explore.
Even if you don't believe the idea that aliens are already hiding here on Earth, or that we managed to wipe out a Martian civilization some 50 years ago, an increasing number of scientists say the probability that other lifeforms exist out there in stars is inescapable.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Dr Max Rempel is the founder and chief executive of the DNA Resonance Research Foundation. Although Rempel's study is yet to be peer-reviewed, it's said to be light-years ahead of conventional genetics.
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Analyzing the DNA of 'ordinary' people and self-reported abductees, Rempel looked at 581 complete families and noted anomalies in 11 of them. The 348 non-parental genetic variants couldn't be blamed on the modern gene-editing CRISPR tool because some of the subjects were born long before the technology was created in 2013.
Rempel reiterated that there's "no conclusive evidence yet, because we need better datasets, which are available only on approval."
Although this takes time and effort, he's adamant that the implications of his work could be 'staggering': "Humanity may be undergoing genetic transformation. If confirmed, it could be possible to detect which humans carry alien DNA, essentially identifying hybrids."
Rempel's hypothesis dives into tinfoil territory by backing up conspiracy theories that alien-human hybrids exist on Earth, pointing to the so-called Nazca mummies having 'alien' and human DNA.
As well as looking at the publicly available data, Rempel studied 3andMe records from those who claim to be alien abductees. Even though some families had strings of non-parental markers, it wasn't on all of them.
The issue comes from the fact that current commercial genotyping services rely on array-based data and aren't precise enough to back up his somewhat radical claims. He wants to access the DNA from parents and kids who have self-reported as alien abductees, with high-resolution sequencing hopefully helping identify the apparent 'alien insertions'.
According Rempel, he thinks there could be 'astonishing' possibilities, like humans developing telepathy through genetic modification.
There are obvious skeptics, with Nigel Watson, author of Portraits of Alien Encounters Revisited, calling out Rempel's small sample size and the problem of self-reported abductees: "Alien abduction experiences can stem from a variety of terrestrial factors. We need to carefully verify these accounts before drawing conclusions about DNA."
Watson thinks technical errors and 'unknown biological mechanisms' might be used to explain the anomalies.
The outlet also notes that both NASA and the Pentagon have said aliens don't exist, but then again, they would say that, wouldn't they?