alien
A sign off U.S. 285 north of Roswell, New Mexico, points west to the alleged 1947 crash site of a flying saucer. The Air Force denies claims of an alien UFO crash, saying a comprehensive examination of the incident found no evidence of flying saucers, space aliens or sinister government cover-ups. Reuters

No one has ever gotten ET to pose for a portrait, but alien buffs claim they’ve discovered the first-ever photos of an extraterrestrial said to have crash-landed near Roswell, New Mexico, almost 70 years ago. The grainy images, which were presented last week at a UFO conference in Mexico City, appear to depict the carcass of an unknown, alien-like being lying face up on a table. The photos were supposedly found among a collection of slides recently recovered from the Sedona, Arizona, house of oil geologist Bernard Ray after his death.

Some wanted to believe that the images truly showed the dead body of an extraterrestrial. But experts say there’s a perfectly logical, if somewhat bizarre, explanation behind the “Roswell alien” photos, which have caused a stir on social media.

A closer analysis of the images has revealed that the alien body is likely to be the mummified remains of a small child. A tiny placard hidden in one of the images apparently reads, “Mummified Body of a Two-Year Old Boy,” according to Metro. The words “San Francisco Museum” also appear on the placard.

“The slides are genuine images of a museum exhibit that have been erroneously been linked to Roswell and aliens,” Nigel Watson, author of the “UFO Investigation Manual,” published in 2014, told Metro. “It is a shame this has tarnished the reputation of all the so-called experts who attended this event. … This must be considered the lowest point UFO research has ever descended to, but it won’t stop some saying that this was deliberately staged to undermine ufology, or from others believing these are images of an alien whatever anyone says.” Ufology is a branch of research dealing with supposed evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth.

The belief that an alien life form took a nosedive in the Arizona desert seven decades ago stemmed from the 1947 crash of an Air Force surveillance balloon near Roswell. It was later revealed that the balloon was part of a top-secret experiment to spy on the Soviets.

Officials presented reporters with debris said to have been taken from the crash area. But conspiracy theories about the wreckage abounded ever since, including allegations that the government was covering up a UFO landing.

Some UFO investigators were not convinced by the new photos, which were revealed as part of a documentary about how the slides were discovered. "It could be a model, or it could simply be a fake image, dressed up to look like a Forties slide," Nick Pope of the U.K. Ministry of Defence told the Mirror. "The motivations for hoaxing are complex. Some hoaxes are money-making scams, but sometimes it's just a desire to say 'we fooled the world.’”