Scientists finally crack the mysterious case of alien-like skeleton

Back in 2003, a bizarre skeleton was discovered that was extremely small and was considered to be an alien skeleton or had extraterrestrial origins. The skeleton had been a mystery since then, however, finally researchers have solved the mystery behind it, blaming the small size to be because of genes.

The Atacama skeleton, aka Ata, was found in the Chilean desert and contained 10 pair of ribs as compared to normal human’s 12. The skeleton’s elongated skull too narrowed to a rigid peak, sunken and slanted eye sockets making people believe that it was some kind of alien or an ancient mummy. The size of the skeleton was odd, almost six inches tall – about the length of a dollar bill.

However, the report published in the journal Genome Research, new findings have shown that the skeleton was of no alien’s; it was for sure of a human being with just an unknown bone disorder, as her genes point out. Back in 2013, the author of the report Garry Nolan informed that her genome verified that Ata had a human DNA but, this new finding represents her whole genome and her unusual mutations, reported The Washington Post.

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The researchers found mutations in several genes of the irregular specimen that govern the bone development, some of the oddities were not even described before.

“This is a super rare human phenotype. Ata is one of the rarest we have ever observed, being only 6 inches and having this advanced bone age,” said co-author Sanchita Bhattacharya.

Moreover, according to Science Daily, Nolan believed that these mutations should be researched more to know further about bone or physical disorders. “For me, what really came of this study was the idea that we shouldn't stop investigating when we find one gene that might explain a symptom. It could be multiple things going wrong, and it's worth getting a full explanation, especially as we head closer and closer to gene therapy,” said genetic driver Butte.

He further added, “We could presumably one day fix some of these disorders, and we're going to want to make sure that if there's one mutation, we know that - but if there's more than one, we know that too.”