In the first half, researcher Lloyd Pye provided an update on the Star Child skull, and its possible ET lineage. He revealed that the geneticist that has been working on the project recovered four critical fragments of mitochondrial DNA from the skull. Unlike previous DNA tests, which allowed for only a glimpse of 1% of the creature's genome, these new samples provide information on 10% of the Star Child's genetic makeup. Remarkably, Pye said, the genetic information is so different from a human's DNA that it now appears that the Star Child was totally alien and not an ET-human hybrid. Pye expressed tremendous confidence that "when we can recover the whole genome," this theory will be confirmed. For more, see Pye's DNA Analysis Report (PDF file).
According to Pye, these new findings help to solve a riddle that has plagued the Star Child skull for many years. He explained that it had become increasingly difficult to reconcile the theory that the creature was a hybrid because the skull "has not a single corollary to a human." In fact, Pye pointed out that the skull has "twenty-five major physical differences" from a normal human, including a lack of frontal sinuses, a larger brain capacity but smaller chewing muscles, and "durable fibers woven through the bone." In light of this new information on the Star Child's genome, Pye declared that "I don't think, anymore, that it was, in any way, shape, or form, a hybrid." Instead, he surmised that "we're looking at a pure alien being."
"Let's face it, this story is going to be as big as anything ever gets," marveled Pye, "it's going to move us to the next phase of reality as humans." He theorized that the Star Child story, should it be confirmed that the creature was an alien, allows for a "bridging mechanism" to the eventual disclosure of the ET reality. Pye said that, for ET believers, it will be seen as confirmation of what they've suspected all along. Meanwhile, for those who may be fearful of the concept of extraterrestrials, the Star Child would be a benign way of introducing them to the reality of aliens, since the creature was on Earth in the distant past and not looming here in the present. Ultimately, Pye mused that "it provides a stepping stone in the direction of coming to a better understanding and acceptance of our own place in the universe."
Open Lines
The latter half of the show was devoted to Open Lines and featured a "Good Luck / Bad Luck" hot line for callers to share their tales of Friday the 13th joy or woe. A caller in Austin, Texas lamented that she had to cancel her 50th birthday party for next week because the tiles to finish her bathroom restoration did not arrive on Friday and, instead, got shipped to Mount Vernon, Illinois. Later, Phil, a military police officer in Newport, Rhode Island, shared the tale of how his Friday the 13th went from bad to good over the course of the day. At the start of the day, Phil said, his bank account had "absolutely no money in there." However, later on the 13th, he took his weapons qualification test and managed to beat the instructor's score. "So it was a pretty good Friday the 13th for me after I got bragging rights for a couple of hours," he laughed.
News segments guests: Jim Berkland / Richard C. Hoagland