An odd looking and tiny mummified skeleton, nicknamed Ata, was found in a deserted town located in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
The entire skeleton is said to be only 15.24 centimeters long.
It’s described as having an elongated skull and sunken, slanted eye sockets and tiny bones.
The 15.4-cm skeleton, nicknamed Ata, was discovered in an abandoned town in the Atacama Desert of Chile in 2003. (Emery Smith)
Shortly after its discovery, in 2003, the Internet buzzed with speculation that Ata’s origin was not of this world, but was an extra-terrestrial.
After a full genome examination and analysis, which spanned over five years, researchers from two California universities found that the remains are probably that of a human female, most likely a fetus that had suffered severe genetic mutations.
The research team from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Institute for Computational Health Sciences at the University of California-San Francisco determined the skeleton’s bone composition was that of a 6-year-old, leading the researchers to think it had a rare, bone-aging disorder.
Research has also determined that the tiny skeleton is about 40 years-old.
The researcher’s findings were documented in a study published in the journal, Genome Research.
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