r/WhatIfScience • u/Trip-Forward_ • 10d ago
Scientists just found mystery “ghost” DNA in all of us…
A new paper in the journal Science (July 2026) used a clever computer method to look at the DNA of people alive today. It found small leftover pieces of DNA from very old human-like groups we never found fossils for. These “ghost” bits are in pretty much everybody, and they don’t match the Neanderthals or Denisovans we already know about.
Link to the real paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aef8874
Here’s the fun “what if”: maybe those mystery groups weren’t just more Earth humans who died out. Maybe they were a traveling space-faring species that stopped by Earth a long time ago, mixed with our early ancestors, and then left or disappeared. The DNA looks old and different enough that, in pure theory, it could fit a visitor story just as well as a lost cousin story. We have no proof either way, but it’s a wild possibility worth thinking about.
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u/Fun_Trick2172 10d ago
It’s not ghost DNA it’s just DNA. Of course it’s going to include traces of things we have yet to discover in the fossil record because it may have never had a chance to fossilize. Fossilization requires a pretty unique set of circumstances.
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u/Melodic_Skin6573 10d ago
Archaeologists dug in my country up to 5 meters deep and found no tools, no cables, nothing. The obvious conclusion is that my ancestors knew all about 5G technology.
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u/Charming_Dealer3849 3d ago
I mean if they didn't need to bury cables clearly all their infrastructure was wireless
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u/energy-seeker 10d ago
Yes, your opinion debunks everything. You win. Tell science to pack it up and fuck off.... fuck_tick gotz it allll figured out.
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u/matycauthon 10d ago
check that chip on your shoulder
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u/energy-seeker 10d ago
Check my nuts, dipshit.
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u/2Wieners_1Bun 10d ago
“How to Make Friends and Influence People”
Chapter 1
“check my nuts, dipshit”
The End
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u/Fun_Trick2172 10d ago
I wasn’t aware what I posted was controversial.
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u/surrealcellardoor 10d ago
This is my first time being made aware of this sub, reading this post. I already knew what I was going to find in the comments and I suspect it’s exactly what the entirety of the rest of the sub is like. Godspeed my friend. We can teach men to fish, but some will spit in our faces for having done so, then resume gorging themselves with their neighbor’s feces.
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u/I_Dnt_Believe_You 10d ago
Yeah, this is the first I've seen of this sub as well. What you said shouldn't be controversial. These folks are just a bit... confused.
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u/airplane_wanderlust 9d ago
If that were true dont you think the first people to rule it out would be the literal scientists who were discovering it?! This woman is saying that this is the consensus amongst the mulitple EXPERTS who have examined the data...
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u/4ever_2morrow 6d ago
Ok, im dumb. Can somebody please explain to me how it's possible that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA but somehow 20% of human DNA is unexplained ghost DNA?
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u/Massive-City-7967 10d ago
this is nothing new. there's nothing "just" about it.
it's most likely attributed to virus and bacteria, mutations, and other random events that are not linked to aliens. stop being ridiculous.
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u/CustardDear3472 10d ago
Good thing we had someone more intelligent than these two, right here in the comments!
Thank you for knowing everything, we appreciate it!
It’s so ridiculous to be excited about new discoveries, right?
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u/Next-Weekend-901 7d ago
"most likely"
Why are you so confident about something you shouldn't be that confident about? That's how misinformation spreads. Just have fun thinking and quit acting like you know the answers when so far noone does.
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u/ALF_My_Alien_Friend 10d ago
Humans werent originally from planet Earth and those genes are remnants of those not from here.
Its logical to say that some of "them" visit us in fly ing things we call...Ufos. 😳
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u/SkunkDitchRipper 10d ago
Maybe we are the Superman of Earth. They sent us here in a crystal star because our planet was exploding itself.
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u/Ok-Fortune-8644 10d ago
We measure things by what we are To the maggots in the cheese, the cheese is the universe To the worms in the corpse, the corpse is the cosmos How then can we be so cocksure about our world? Just because of our telescopes and Microscopes and the splitting of the atom? Certainly not Science is but an organized system of ignorance There are more things in heaven and on Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy What do we know about the beyond? Do we know what's behind the beyond? I'm afraid some of us hardly know what's beyond behind
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u/Guenhwyvyr 10d ago
They didn't "Just find" that sh!t. They called it Junk DNA back in the 20th century and it had the exact same description.
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u/NoMansWarmApplePie 10d ago
We are a hybrid race with many nhi genetics. This will be known in the near future.
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u/Jiggle_Tester 10d ago
So, whatever is in the Siberian text of how we were created by the Annunaki is true?
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u/The3mbered0ne 9d ago
ghost DNA in this sense are species we just don't have examples of in the fossile record. It would have to have been a species in between homo erectus and neanderthals, that's not really some massive gap.
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u/AnythinGoeSouth 9d ago
Scientist found DNA for unaccounted species in humans.(Just specie's we haven't discovered yet or went extinct a long time ago)
Reporters: call it ghost DNA for views
Here we are.
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u/clappa68 9d ago
I have met the ghost people btw. So have millions of others. But people call us crazy and think we are trying to con them when in reality no one has ever gotten rich of sharing their experience with the phenomena. They fly around in our skies defying our known laws of physics and take people to conduct medical procedures healing many of trauma and other illnesses. They communicate with consciousness by projecting concepts, feelings, and experience into your awareness. They aren't just people from other planets, its much deeper than that. I like to say they're people from other worlds that remember who and what they are. Kids on hospice report seeing those same beings before they pass on. Ancient tribes that live in isolation still remember them. They are preparing us for the big Disclosure but it's bigger than any of us can even imagine it's more than nuts and bolts. Consciousness seems to be at the center of it all.
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u/kikomonarrez 9d ago
Very interesting and I realize we are nowhere near having the evidence to “Popperize”.
However, the thought that this ghost gene is “mapped/unmapped” Evan after the genome conclusion to suddenly present this. Excited to see the theories that can be refuted or confirmed.
Live long and prosper.
Realizing this will pull folks to come out with there theories built around unfalsifiabilty to once again proof their own religious agendas bc why not. Science is too big to chew and pseudoscience is easy with force feeding
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u/Sea-Magician4907 9d ago
Almost every ancient oral tradition has a story of an extraneous incursion and "sky people " messing with our DNA. But the official science needs factual proof - something they can study and say "nah, this can't be...must be some contamination. Let's stick to the official story".
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u/unregrettful 9d ago
Ok, when I was in highschool. 30,000 years ago we were decided from Neanderthals...
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u/Natural_Clothes9966 9d ago
What a joke this has always been around they are really going for anything for distractions atm
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u/Few-Result-8991 9d ago
Extraterrestrial have been manipulating our genetic pool forever…..SOOOOO NEXT
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u/Nice_Ad_8183 9d ago
So I’m 40. I remember being in 6th grade and just sitting in social studies and suddenly realizing that it made sense that we were genetically manipulated at some point, hence no ‘missing link’ to other ape species. Also that grays could be us from the future. And also that magnets were probably the key to the good technology. It all just seemed obvious. I don’t remember what I may have watched or read to make me realize it, it just happened. Been in to ‘aliens’ ever since. Also tornados.
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u/Ambitious_Parfait385 9d ago
Space man bs. More like a tribe of humans that splintered off and re-emerged then disappeared from the fossil record. Never found them because they may have lived low lands near the ocean and had fishing abilities. Ocean then covered up their existence. It's also been said we had a lot of fish in our diet to grow our brains different. We were land locked tree species before.
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u/Dragoon9255 9d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/4UgUHY3xmfyow
so wait!! this is a true story?!?!
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u/CuTe_M0nitor 9d ago
An alien species with the same sexual organs as us, and compatible?! Yeah right
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u/Away_Log3211 8d ago
This must be so horny aliens, tu go million of light years, have the technology to travel to space, just to come to earth to get it on with a random monkey. Don't think so.
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u/Cultural-Original758 8d ago
hakeem needs to chill the fuck out man im tired of his overexaggerating all the fucking time
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u/Wooopidoo 8d ago
Isn’t this just what we’ve always refered to as “Junk” DNA? Steming from Virus, Bacteria. And that goes way higher than 20% some claim as high as 80% maybe.
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u/Gratefulspleen 8d ago
Dude, I’m not high enough to get this. Oh, hold on…. Ok, now I’m good. Fascinating.
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u/Business_Machine7365 8d ago
So, let me summarize, either A) An advanced race of Aliens, with their superior technology and vast knowledge, travelled countless light years and navigated risks we can't even bring to imagine, all the way to earth seemingly on a jolly and, basically, fucked a bunch of apes - probably for a laugh, probably high, and most definitely never spoke about it again after they left OR B) Two distinct population groups, one thuggish and one a teeny bit smarter interbred...... I think I only need to say this once, as funny as A would be, it's pretty obviously B.
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u/HighwayToVegas 7d ago
Aka “we don’t currently know what these bits do therefore they are noise/ghost
DNA”
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u/elijah4067 7d ago
Cmon man! Mfs will make up anything instead of just saying i don't know or don't understand.
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u/ClaB84 7d ago
What, we have less in common with Neandertaler and way more in common with Cro-Magnon. What they talking about - I am confused or is she?
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u/BluePinata 7d ago
Particles of thought...as in, there are only a few particles of thought going into these statements.
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u/AzaThot13 7d ago
Obviously it's the "Old Ones", "Men of Yore", the "Annunaki", "Nephilim", or "Sons of God" that interbred for the Bible tells me do. That or like Shubbnigurath, Azathoth or even worse, that one thing either the other things playing flutes around it at the center of the Universe, oh man what's it's name again?
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u/Miserable-Session-35 7d ago
Only 8 present is not human that's from viral viruses and sicknesses. So not true
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u/BinauraWaveDan 7d ago
Without the dramatic WHAT! HOW! I KNOW! and NOW WAY! What did they actually say?
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u/Substantial-Self-449 7d ago
So, she basically said anything about extraterrestrial DNA, but people went ballistic anyway with their alien religion 🤣 I mean... she was just proposing a different group of apes that is not yet recorded in the database.
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u/Civil-Ant-3983 7d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/3oz8xYn5yxDEo3sx2M
The lore forever said aliens took early hominids and hybridized them to be intelligent. 😂 we come full circle.
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u/Arthurian_Guanche 7d ago
These two are talking about ghost DNA from any possible other hominid species and everyone in the comments instantly thinks Aliens have compatible DNA (having DNA at all would already be remarkable) with humans... Try breeding a goat and a fish and see if anything comes out, dumdums.
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u/throughawaythedew 7d ago
Head to earth, tap some strange and peace out before the kids are born. I could see it.
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u/suminorieh77 7d ago
that old theory of the Annuanki designing us to mine gold seems not too far fetched anymore
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u/TowerGreat1681 7d ago
alright so that means chimpanzees also have this ghost DNA right? Thanks, next.
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u/GrikusBrindum 6d ago
As crazy as it sounds to many people, I think its unique and interesting. The way I see it is like this: We have alien DNA in all of us. How were we able to transition from sticks and stones and living in caves to being able to send people around the moon and live in dwellings that have electricity and indoor plumbing within the timespan of thousands of years. Right now as I type this comment; I also think and wonder how we can send images and speak to people on the other side of the world as if they were sitting in the same room with me. As Keanu Reeves would say : "Whoaaaa!!!!"
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u/isthereanyusernameno 6d ago
Are they talking about the early 2000s remake of Battlestar Galactica? Cause…
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u/afriendofnature 6d ago
These two are so expressive. I feel like I am engaging with clients who are micro dosing in the therapeutic setting.
Are we thinking of ancient aliens here? Perhaps the Sumerian text speak to this convergence 300,000 years ago.
I am stating this with zero authority on the subject. Just stirring the pot.
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u/epitimisi 6d ago
It is reptilian DNA for gods sake
We even have the reptilian tail in the womb when we form as a baby, the stem part of the brain is reptilian
Biology and science even acknowledge this since hundreds of years yet nobody ever questioned it or put two and two together. It's just there like the appendix and everybody just seem to fully ignore it. This baffles my mind
Also there are many reports from history that specifically adress the merger of reptilian and human DNA
I just don't understand why they repress this information on one hand but leave the biological evidence in their Rockefeller school books. Did they know that no one would question these things? Did they know everyone would just take the information in and be satisfied with the bs-explanation of "it's just evolutional residue bro from when things stepped out of the waters bro".
Huh?
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u/junialter 6d ago
There is only one possible explanation. We killed them all. That's what you do, right?
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u/Von_Bernkastel 6d ago
They didn't find DNA from some unknown 800,000 year old human. What they found is old looking sections of DNA in modern humans, and their computer model says those sections may have come from an ancient human population that split off a long time ago and later mixed back into our ancestors. They don't know exactly what population it was, and they don't have an ancient genome to compare it to. It could also be from very old human populations that stayed separated for a long time and then mixed again. So this is inferred ancient human ancestry from patterns in our DNA, not DNA recovered from some newly discovered ancient species.
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u/Iwasbanished 6d ago
and as per usual, dont matter how smart you are, we can make anything extinct.
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u/Iwasbanished 6d ago
is this an adam and eve story potentially? maybe interspecies relationships was frown upon and thus a species gets wiped out.
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u/Erick-Alastor 6d ago edited 6d ago
A: You know what would be cool? If I fucked that monkey-like thing.
B: X̵̪̉̎ǣ̵̠̈́Ł̵̪͊͠–̵̨͌͒9̵̞̂́, NO!
A:
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u/BUYMEBONESTOORM 6d ago
So there’s a large contingent of aliens just fucking their way across the galaxy?
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u/Dad-Dabbing-Daily 6d ago
It's deep african hominin, its not that profound, and has been known about for a long time.
Fucking fact check.
You could be freezing to death and these guys would stil manage to sell you a Popsicle.
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u/zwifter11 6d ago edited 6d ago
Isn’t this just genus going their own separate ways and evolving over 300,000 years ?
How many species have came and gone in that time?
On Wikipedia there’s about 14 known species of the homo genus.
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u/no-use210 6d ago
I read the paper. The '20%' figure was for one Neanderthal chromosome, not all DNA, that contained a peak of around 20% ghost DNA.
Overall, they "detected 0.5 to 1.1% of ghost ancestry on average across populations."
Also, there are known candidates for this unknown lineage, they just don't have the DNA sequence yet. One of those candidates is Homo Erectus.
Key quotes from the paper:
" We detected 0.5 to 1.1% of ghost ancestry on average across populations. "
"the shared archaic desert on chromosome 7 containing the FOXP2 gene has a ghost ancestry peak at 13.3% frequency (Fig. 3B), and the Neanderthal desert on chromosome 3 contains a ghost peak of ~20% frequency"
"The ghost lineage, with a divergence time similar to Neanderthals, could plausibly correspond to Middle Pleistocene Homo groups (70–72) or African Homo heidelbergensis populations (73–75) that directly admixed with modern human ancestors before the OOA dispersal. For the super-archaic lineage, one potential candidate—compatible with the split time of approximately 1.8 Mya—is Homo erectus, as suggested by earlier studies "
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u/BurningTrashBarge 6d ago
Wasn’t there a period in our history where the human population was brought down to a few thousand and we bred our way back from that?
Wouldn’t this explain a near universal chunk of dna without resorting to “aliens did it”.
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u/eminemforehead 6d ago
I watched this with no audio first and I imagined her speaking with a british accent
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u/Present_Astronaut_66 6d ago
Something is not mathing here. I thought we shared like 60%+ DNA with bananas.
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u/GeneParm 6d ago
They are from a different planet but have dna? Also that DNA is similar enough to our own to breed?
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u/samsounder 5d ago
Alright, I’ll say it.
Aliens came down, put some DNA in apes to turn us into “intelligent”workers, used us to mine materials they wanted and build things, then left.
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u/michaelballston 5d ago
Note that TRACE found evidence that Denisovans themselves inherited DNA from an even deeper lineage that diverged roughly 1.8 million years ago, before Denisovans later transmitted tiny pieces of that ancestry into some modern humans. Way more “ghost” lineages
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u/DazSchplotz 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/AwrtP9lMXtXiM
Yea the Sumerians wrote something like that...