Nicknamed Ata, the six-inch long skeleton featured an elongated skull and 10 pairs of ribs instead of the usual 12, with the unusual features attracting the interest of alien and UFO enthusiasts. By the time she succumbed, probably to breathing or feeding difficulties or complications of a likely premature birth, the infant’s bones and the ways in which they had fused gave her the skeletal structure of a child between 6 and 8 years old. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Genome Research, reveal that the specimen’s miniature stature and multiple skeletal irregularities – including its cone-shaped skull – could stem from a relatively short list of mutations in genes associated with diseases like scoliosis, dwarfism and musculoskeletal abnormalities. In the 14 years since it was found in an abandoned mining town in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the bizarre 15-cm skeleton has inspired fervid speculation, including theories of unearthly origins. When it came to genetic mutations affecting the structure and growth of bones, said Nolan, the child won a sort of grim lottery, “which unfortunately was a death sentence.”

“It’s rare — very, very rare” to find so many mutations related to the same systems in a single person, he said. That film drew the attention of immunologist Garry Nolan of Stanford University in California, who was able to obtain permission to perform genetic testing on the skeleton to determine if was of Earthly or, as it was rumored, extraterrestrial origin. “This is a great example of how studying ancient samples can teach us how to analyze modern-day medical samples,” said co-author Atul Butte, director of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He said: 'Maybe there's a way to accelerate bone growth in people who need it, people who have bad breaks,' he said.
DNA tests confirm Ata, an unusual six-inch-long mummy found in Chile in 2003, to be the remains of a newborn human with genetic mutations.