Did you ever come across the story of Ata, the alleged alien skeleton that made waves across media 15 years ago? The skeleton measuring only 6 inches tall was found in the Atacama Desert of Chile and possessed all of the features of an alien complete with huge oval head. The skeleton has been baffling archaeologists and scientists alike but now the truth has finally been revealed.
The skeleton had features that perplexed everyone and its bones were like that of a child not more than 8 years old. It had a long angular skull, only 10 pairs of ribs as opposed to the normal 12 and even angular eyes that seemed like those of ET who never got to phone home. But jokes aside, we finally have the truth about Ata.
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When Ata was found, some believed it to be a primate while others thought the skeleton belonged to some extraterrestrial life form. The skeleton was even featured in documentaries and live TV shows. One such documentary called “Sirius” was quite famous when one UFO researcher tried to explain where Ata the alien skeleton came from.
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It took researchers five years to study Ata to finally conclude where the skeleton came from and who it belonged to. Genomic analysis has finally provided an accurate explanation that Ata is not an alien but very much human albeit a deformed one.
The skeleton belonged to a human who suffered multiple deformities and bone mutations. The research was published in the Journal Genome Research. The remarkable thing about this is that the skeleton has provided scientists a means of studying and diagnosing mutation related bone diseases in living patients today.
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Ata was discovered in 2003 in La Noria which is a Desert mining town in the Atacama Desert in Chile. At first, scientists believed it to be an ancient find but analysis on the skeleton proved it was only 40 years old. The DNA was still intact and provided scientists with a lot of room for study. The hype surrounding Ata was finally brought to the notice of Gary Nolan professor of microbiology and immunology in Stanford University.
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Gary Nolan entered into an agreement with the director’s of Sirius to study the presumed alien humanoid and determine its origin. Nolan decided to study the skeleton because he thought it may be a new primate species or a new type of human deformity. He revealed that he never believed it to be an alien.
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DNA was extracted from the bone marrow of the Skeleton’s ribs to conduct a genome sequence and then compared with the genomes of humans and primates. The result proved the skeleton to be a human and could have also been a fetus aged between 6 to 8 years old. Research also proved it had a rare bone disorder of ageing bones making it seem older than it actually was.
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The research continued for five years during which attempts were made to explain the small size of the skeleton and the abnormalities in its bones including the rib count. One author of the study, Dr Atul Butte was brought into the research team to evaluate the genome.
Seven genes revealed oddities and mutations which were found to be responsible for the bone abnormalities like scoliosis and skeletal dysplasia also called dwarfism.
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Other mutations were found in genes responsible for collagen, ribs, joints and arteries. The vast combination of genetic mutations together explained why Ata was so visibly deformed to look like an alien. What surprised the scientist was the presence of so many mutations existing in one specimen. According to Professor Butte, that was the biggest rarity present in Ata.
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While the genetic disease is usually passed down from parents who are the carriers, in the case of Ata, the mutations were extremely rare unlike what has ever been seen before. This made it almost impossible for the mutations to be passed down from carriers.
"Many times, genetic diseases are passed on from parents that are carriers," Butte said. "In this case, these mutations are so rare that we haven't actually ever seen some of these before, so it's hard to imagine there are carriers out there.”
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The researchers felt that the environment could have influenced the mutations. It was the high exposure of nitrates present in the mines area that may have affected the specimen. Butte also expressed hope that the advanced technology used to study Ata could now be of use to study deformities and genetic mutations in living patients. This could also help experts formulate new treatments for genetic mutations.
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Professor Butte felt that many children’s hospitals are reporting rare and unusual symptoms in children never seen before. While DNA sequencing can locate on mutation, there could be more than one difference in DNA that is hard to explain and research shouldn’t stop when one has been found because there may be more like in Ata’s case.
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Ata is not the first case of mystery surrounding the discovery of a little mummy. On August 13th, 1996, a woman named Tamara Prosvirina claimed to have found a small creature in a forest where she took it home and cared for it. What transpired after that was a huge phenomenon in Russia that would be known as the mystery of the Kyshtym Alien, named after the town Kyshtym where it was found.
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The alien creature subsequently died in her absence after she suffered psychological trauma and was taken away for treatment. The alien’s mummified remains were hidden in a garage till it came into the possession of a local thief who after being caught for another crime handed over the alien mummy to the police.
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It was subsequently studied by a urologist Doctor Uskov and a physician Pathologist Stanislaw Samoshkin. The doctors could not find out its origins and what it was as it looked unlike any creature they had seen. They pronounced it some new lifeform.
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Upon changing hands with authorities, the alleged alien mummy suddenly vanished and all that remained was video evidence made by Police officer Bendlin who says he had handed it over to an organization called the “Star Academy’. Even when a Japanese production company heard about the incident and wanted to interview the woman who initially discovered the alien, they were unable to.
Tamara was released by the psychiatric hospital and then declared dead the next day. She was reported to have been a victim of a hit and run accident although eyewitnesses declared that they had seen two cars from opposite directions hitting her, the case was promptly closed.
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