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I had to look this up to see what was actually meant by this: I don't think even the zaniest urologist would make this claim.
Apparently, the radiocarbon testing and DNA testing were separate, unrelated tests, with radiocarbon dating suggesting a date of 1700 years ago when these poor wayward alien souls got lost in a pile of algae muck. And the DNA evidence suggest that a full 30% of the DNA specimen was "unknown" and therefore of extraterrestrial origin, since only 70% matches terrestrial sources. Presumably it's some alien-human hybrid.
If it is of, as the history channel says, extraterrestrial origin, which I don’t believe, the more plausible explanation would be a contaminated sample, would it not?
Contamination through and through, which is to be expected. The issue is when they suggest that the 30% unknown is alien DNA, instead of more plausible terrestrial contaminants.
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How, exactly, would this alien-human hybridization even work?
This was covered extensively in the hardcore 90's documentary The XXX Files: Lust in Space
Posting a Finnish classic
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This was covered extensively in the hard science 90's documentary The X-Files.
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My post was sarcastic, though probably overly ungenerous to the Ayys. Most likely they would say it's extraterrestrial DNA that's been contaminated by various terrestrial sources, including humans.
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You can take a sample of mud from your backyard and do a comprehensive DNA sequencing on it and end up with more unknown DNA than that.
Exactly. We do environmental genetic testing all the time in our lab, and even in the best case the results are full of "unknown" -- partly because most DNA gathered is too damaged to be identified, and partly because we don't have genetic data available for all random protists and bacteria that are swarming in every cubic millimeter of dirt.
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