Tiny Mummy’s ‘Alien’ Appearance Finally Explained

Researchers hope their new research will settle debate over the origins of Ata, a naturally mummified infant found in the Chilean desert.

By Erika Check Hayden

Published 28 Mar 2018, 19:03 BST

Ata, the six-inch mummy found in Chile's Atacama desert.

Photograph by Emery Smith

Ata is just six inches tall, with a conical-shaped head and unusually hard bones for her size. Some have claimed that she’s an alien. But a new study published in the journal Genome Research not only continues to disprove the alien theory, but also reveals a scientific explanation for her allegedly extraterrestrial appearance.

The debate started in 2003 when the naturally mummified remains of Ata were discovered near a ghost town in Chile’s Atacama Desert. A Spanish businessman, Ramón Navia-Osorio, purchased the mummy and in 2012 allowed a doctor named Steven Greer to use x-ray and computed tomography (CT) imaging to analyz=se her skeleton.

Greer is the founder of The Disclosure Project, which is “working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems,” according to its Web site.

Ata is only as long as a human fetus. But a radiologist who analysed the images said that Ata’s bones were about as mature as those of a human six-year-old.

At the time, Greer also provided samples of Ata’s bone marrow to immunologist Garry Nolan at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Nolan’s team sequenced Ata’s DNA and concluded that her genetic material was from a human being, not an alien. But he couldn’t explain how such a small person could exhibit her unusual physical appearance.

Ata is only as long as a human fetus, but her bones are about as mature as those of a six-year-old.

Photograph by Emery Smith

“Once we understood that it was human, the next step was to understand how something could come to look like this,” Nolan says.

So Nolan worked with genetic researchers at Stanford and with computational biologist Atul Butte’s team at the University of California, San Francisco to analyse Ata’s genome. According to their new study, mutations are present in seven of Ata’s genes that are all involved in human growth. Nolan now thinks that this combination of mutations caused Ata’s severe skeletal abnormalities, including her unusually rapid bone growth. He says that Ata is most likely a human fetus who was either stillborn or died soon after birth.

But those who believe that Ata is extraterrestrial aren’t changing their minds, regardless of the new scientific revelations.

“We don’t know what it is, but it most certainly is not a deformed human,” says Greer, who is aware of the new research.

Scientists, however, say that in light of the new analysis, it’s time to bury the Ata controversy.

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