In March of this year , a team of California - based aesculapian and genetic researcher issue a report that seemingly answered many of the combustion questionssurrounding the mysterious “ Atacama Alien ” .

say to have been unearthed from the church graveyard of an abandoned town in Chile ’s Atacama desert , the partially mummify 15 - cm ( 6 - column inch ) remains hadshocked and puzzledthe world since 2003 , thanks to their tiny stature and uncanny nuclear fusion of features from a human skeleton and a classic “ little greenish man ” Hollywood alien .

Captivated by the oddity and hop to discover the true origin of the corpse , Professor Garry Nolan of Stanford University performed a detailed examination of the bone before looping in Atul Butte , from UCSF , for a whole genome analytic thinking . After five years of work , Nolan and Butte concludedthat the clay , which they dearly nicknamed " Ata " , belong to a preterm foetus that die around 40 year ago . They tell that the unnatural morphology and contradictory osseous tissue plate experimental condition – which ab initio suggested Ata was 6 to 8 years old at the time of demise – could be explicate by the many genetic mutation they place .

But now , an international grouping of expert in anatomy , anthropology , archeology , and obstetrics and gynaecology is calling these findings into question .

In an clause published in theInternational Journal of Paleopathology , lead writer Sian Halcrow and her colleagues argue that the useable physical evidence does not support Nolan and Butte ’s claim that Ata is screen with malformation . Moreover , they aver that the previously chance DNA succession variation discovered in Ata ’s genome are unlikely to cause wasted or joint problems and the effects of the novel mutations but can not be inferred at this sentence . The the true is seems , is much simpler .

“ As expert in human anatomy and emaciated development , we find no grounds for any of the skeletal anomaly claimed by the generator . Their observations of ‘ anomalies ’ represent normal gaunt developing in the fetus , cranial molding from delivery , ” – fundamentally , the singular skull shape can be explained by the pressure of vaginal birth – “ and potential post - mortem [ burial - related ] effects , ” they wrote .

And although the analysis did disclose several genetic mutations that have been more definitely linked to skeletal dysplasias and other disorders , Halcrow ’s group believe that Nolan and Butte ’s comparability to a randomly selected healthy control of Chilean descent invalidates their own theory by demonstrate that “ it is possible to find a similar identification number of edition as place in the Atacama fetus in any given human being and that these may be associated with a variety of disorders that will never be expressed in the phenotype . ”

In a terminal blow to the early research , the current team raise ethical and legal concerns regarding how the fetal remains were take from their burial website , channel , and sampled .

" This mummy reflects a distressing loss for a mother in the Atacama Desert , " co - writer Dr Bernardo Arriaza say in astatement .

Professor Halcrow added that she and another author sought to respond at once to the old subject area , yet : " We were both told thatGenome Researchdoes not issue letter to the editor , only original research papers , despite senior authors Nolan and Butte ’s later response statement in which they seek to rationalize the ethics of their analyses . ”

" For the scientific outgrowth to gain it is indispensable to have open argument through peer - reviewed journals . "