IncidentThe Atacama Humanoid "Ata" (2003-2018)

Discovered by Oscar Munoz around 2003 near the ghost nitrate town of La Noria in the Atacama Desert, the ~15 cm body - with 10 rib pairs (vs 12), an elongated conical skull, enlarged eye sockets, and hardened bones - fueled extraterrestrial speculation, peaking with Steven Greer’s 2013 documentary ‘Sirius.’ Stanford immunologist Garry Nolan’s team confirmed human origin in 2013, and a definitive 2018 genomic study (Nolan, Bhattacharya, and Atul Butte of UCSF, in Genome Research) found Ata was a human female of Chilean descent, born within roughly the past few decades, with 64 unusual mutations across 7 skeletal-development genes (several linked to dysplasia and scoliosis) - explaining the small size, conical skull, and anomalous bone age, consistent with a premature fetus or stillbirth. A 2018 critique (Sian Halcrow et al.) disputed the specific pathology (arguing the appearance fits normal fetal development) and raised serious ethics concerns, since Ata is likely recent, identifiable human remains. A clean, conclusively resolved ‘alien body’ case - a physical specimen promoted as alien and definitively shown human by genomics, the methodological sibling of the Nazca/Mexico mummies, and a study in how an unusual human specimen becomes an ‘alien’ claim.