Peru - After strange "alien" mummies with three fingers were found in Peru last year, leading researchers have presented the first results of their investigations.

Joshua McDowell, a former prosecutor from Colorado, has examined the bodies with the help of an international team of researchers.

He has now presented the first results to the Daily Mail.

"These were not traditional human fingerprint patterns," the expert is certain.

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Using one mummy – named Maria by researchers – as an example, McDowell said, "We did not see any loops or whorls on the prints of the fingers or on the toes."

Instead, Maria had rectangular fingerprints.

McDowell emphasizes, "I'm a former prosecutor. I'm a criminal defense attorney. I've seen lots of fingerprints. And these were not classic fingerprints."

He is certain that "'María's fingerprints weren't consistent with human prints."

Maria and over a dozen other mummies were presented to the general public last year by renowned ufologist Jaime Maussan in the Mexican parliament.

The mysterious remains are said to be more than 1,000 years old and were allegedly found in a diatomite mine in the Peruvian Andes.

The discovery of the so-called "Nazca mummies" caused shock waves in the UFO research scene at the time.

Josh McDowell is nevertheless cautious as the missing fingerprints "could possibly have something to do with the way her skin was preserved," he said, adding that "it's very odd."

Last year, a Mexican research team claimed to have proven that the genes of the almost 1.20-meter-tall creatures consist of 30% "non-human DNA".

Although his research results and those of his colleagues point to an extraterrestrial origin of the creatures, Joshua McDowell is cautious. It is "extremely premature" to make statements about the origin of the mummies.

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DNA studies in a "state-of-the-art" laboratory should now bring certainty, he hopes.

According to forensic archaeologist Flavio Estrada, the objects are by no means authentic mummies.

He insists that the "artifacts" in question are by no means thousands of years old but were created in modern times.