Eight inches tall. A cone-shaped head. Ten pairs of ribs. Ata has fascinated science and conspiracy alike since her discovery 2003.

This skeleton, given the name Ata, was found in Atacama Desert, Chile. Upon her discovery they classified her to be at least six-years-old due to the calcification of her bones. The shape of her head and the age for such a small figure lent her to be suspected a remarkable proof of alien existence. Possibly an ancient presence of aliens on this planet.

Well, the wonders of modern genetics has revealed something still remarkable, not extraterrestrial.

Ata is a human. She was ether a miscarried fetus or did not survive long after birth due to her size and plethora of genetic mutations. She is forty-years-old, not an ancient being.

A genetic test conducted on a bone marrow sample revealed this: she had a bone disorder that caused them to calcify rapidly, hence the wrong age estimate that gave her such an odd mystery. She had oxycephaly, a disorder that caused her head to be cone shaped. She had the genetic disorder we know as dwarfism, or skeletal dyplasisia

The leader of this recent discovery is Doctor Gary Nolan, professor at Stanford for microbiology and immunology. As well senior author on the study Doctor Atule Butte of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. To them this revelation does not go into conspiracy, rather the study of genetics. How mutations and disorders will affect the way we appear and function to the point where we are not even seen as human.

One stressing point as this story can be seen as grotesque or tragic: “everybody is born with mutations. This person just happened to roll snake eyes.”