Tiny ‘Alien’ Skeleton Debunked by DNA Evidence

[JaneyVee]

A tiny humanoid skeleton found in Chile’s Atacama Desert has been hailed by UFO conspiracists for years as proof of extraterrestrial life. Now, actual science has proven that the skeleton, as with all currently known life, originated on Earth.

According to a LiveScience report, researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have used DNA testing on the fossilized skeleton. Despite the figure being only 6 inches long, the testing revealed that it comes from a human who was 6 to 8 years old when they died.

The researchers have not yet determined what deformities may have led to the obviously strange skeletal figure. The age of the skeleton has also not yet been determined, though the current estimate is that the person it belonged to died “at least a few decades ago.”

The rest: http://www.webpronews.com/tiny-alien-skeleton-debunked-by-dna-evidence-2013-05
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Uh, how did a 6 inch human live to be 6-8yrs old???

[WinkyDink]

1. "Uh, how did a 6 inch human live to be 6-8yrs old???" EXACTLY.

[Duer 157099]

2. I have the same question. 6-8 years???

Well, I guess we know she didn't need a lot of food. Mind boggling though.

[arcane1]

3. From the article: "there is a real discrepancy in how we account for the apparent age of the bones"

This comes from the original Discovery article:
http://news.discovery.com/human/alien-looking-skeleton-poses-medical-mystery-130430.htm

In other words, the 6-8 years is not carved in stone. They are still doing analysis.

[Duer 157099]

4. I wonder if this might have been a parasitic twin?

That could explain how it could live for so long.

I also wonder if the skeleton may have had the "head-shrinking" process applied to it?

If the person stood and walked, they should be able to tell by the joints, no? Or wear on the feet bones?

[DirkGently]

5. Not exactly a debunking, given they have no idea what's going on.

It contains human DNA. They have no idea how it came to be sized and shaped this way, or how it managed to live for 6-8 years (if that is true). There is also unidentified DNA, which of course is probably more human DNA that decomposed. Probably. But all of these "strange, wizened little corpse" stories up to now have all turned out to be someone stitching an ostrich head onto an armadillo, or a dehydrated sea turtle or a dead coyote that had mange.

But here the most mainstream interpretation is that this was a six-inch tall human male with a tiny, elongated head and the wrong number of ribs, who maybe lived for six to eight years? Not an alien? Okay. But this is not a known type of human deformation either.

So they basically have no idea.

I don't think that's what "debunked" means.

[FSogol]

6. That's a weather balloon.

Or swamp gas.

[Iggo]

44. ^^^ Winner.

[Phillip McCleod]

7. omg are people *so ready* to believe anything?

that they'll believe a sadly dwarfed child is a UFO and get *offended* when this fact is pointed out?

ugg.

[HiPointDem]

20. never heard of a six inch dwarf. i don't believe it.

[Phillip McCleod]

25. must be an *alien* then? i don't believe it.

[HiPointDem]

57. could be a fetal skeleton. that would be my guess.

[Yo_Mama]

35. The modern record for extremely short adults is 1 foot 9 inches

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Bahadur_Dangi. He is in his 70s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shortest_people

For a child below 10 years with some sort of growth-stunting genetic disease to be 6 to 8 inches wouldn't be out of the realm of what is known about human genetics. They are discovering new genetic disorders all the time.

[EOTE]

41. It's not out of the realm of what is known about human genetics?

It seems to me that is IS out of that realm. Even by the link you provided, the shortest known record for adults is THREE TIMES that size. And people typically don't grow in height by a factor of three between 6 years of age and adulthood. Please tell me what is known about human genetics that is congruent with a 6" tall 6 year old child.

[HiPointDem]

47. yes it would.

[Shankapotomus]

8. Just guessing but

The flat head quite possibly comes from the esthetic practice of head binding.

And, not sure if it was known in South America but, I'm thinking they shrunk the whole body after death. Possibly, the boy was killed as a captive of an enemy tribe and shrunken to trophy size.

[djean111]

29. The headhunters take the skull out before shrinking the head.

I don't think bones can be shrunk. shrunken. I give up.

Anyway, parasitic twin or something along those lines sounds reasonable.
Or maybe everything does not make it to TV/internet/whatever.

[Matariki]

9. They know what 'alien DNA' is like, and it's not like human DNA. Obviously.

Because, a 6 INCH human skeleton?

[Nye Bevan]

10. OK, maybe it's not an alien. But it could be a human that was shrunk by an alien (nt)

[csziggy]

59. No - it was shrunk by Dr. Cyclops!

[d_r]

11. solved it.

[anneboleyn]

14. MTE. That thing can't be real. It must be some kind of joke.

[Poll_Blind]

17. Not necessarily. This young lady was 2 feet tall on her 18th birthday:

Not as small as Lucia Zarate, but damned close.

PB

[HiPointDem]

21. she was probably about the same size on her 10th birthday too. six inches is about the size of

a fetus. never heard of any viable human *but* a fetus being that small.

[Poll_Blind]

39. Thank you- from the moment I posted that image, I was wondering what...

...size she would have been and more importantly what scale she would have been (for lack of a better word) during her lifetime, such as at birth and between then and now.

PB

[anneboleyn]

54. Exactly. Six inches is the size of a fetus.

[Kalidurga]

12. Uh, how did a 6 inch human live to be 6-8yrs old???

And not be a news story?????

[anneboleyn]

13. Clearly ridiculous! 8 years? That "skeleton" looks absurd to me, but what do I know

The "scientists" who debunked the alien dna mystery must have discerned that a skeleton that looked like a plastic alien toy from the 1960s was/is totally reasonable.

[pediatricmedic]

15. I would guess dessicated premature infant if it isn't an outright hoax

That is judging from the long bones, joints, and missing soft tissue. Fetal age of 17 to 20 weeks.

[alphafemale]

50. That would be my guess.

Maybe the scientists just said 6 to 8 yrs to mess with the saucerites.

[Poll_Blind]

16. How hilarious. One impossible thing debunked and found to be ANOTHER impossible thing.

Now this...I LOVE!



I'm just ticked they didn't say "This is a hoax! It's not an alien. It's...a leprechaun!"

PB

[Marrah_G]

23. Well... maybe it IS a leprechaun...

OR......... maybe leprachauns are really ALIENS!

[someone please insert picture of the hair guy]

[Javaman]

36. or as my aunt and uncle would call them...

the "little people".

They were very old school and believed in them.

[Bucky]

18. Dental records reveal his name is Ray Palmer

only some of you will get that.

[Marr]

22. I get it. :D

And I still think you should've STAYED dead.

[randome]

31. Ha! To both of you!!!

[freshwest]

19. Oh, noes! An entire genre of CT put to death! What shall we do?

I'm still waiting for those ten foot tall lizards to show up, yup.

Hey, it could happen...

[anneboleyn]

52. Art Bell's guests swear "thunderbirds" are everywhere in the American west

and you know, what he says, we should all probably believe -- also his replacement George Noory has a firm faith in thunderbirds, lizard people/alien hybrids, roswell, etc. as well. (I should say George's guests believe these things. Who knows what George himself REALLY believes about what his guests claim).

[freshwest]

55. Yeah, the thunderbird thing. They swear it. One of his guests says:

This is my favorite. Never look at the Moon the same again. Kind of like the planet Earth's own Death Star in orbit. Pretty cool, huh?

[Marrah_G]

24. Okay....

A 6 inch 6 year old human? Not saying it's an alien, but you would think someone would have known about a 6 inch child that lived to be 6-8 years of age.

I love a mystery!!!!!!!!

[graham4anything]

26. God Damn the stupid conspiracy theorists. They are like ultra cult religions.

and maybe it would have been nice to be warned there was a picture of a skelton while one is eating breakfast. Maybe I didn't want to see this.

[FSogol]

27. Anyone old enough to remember Bob and Ray?

Bob: Now with today’s final hard luck story, here is Mr. Farley
Plummer of Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I understand you spent your
life savings on a trip to New York to have some dental work
done.

Plummer: That’s right. As you may have noticed, I’m only ten-
and-a-half inches tall. So, of course, I have a very small mouth
and tiny little teeth in there. I couldn’t find a dentist in Tulsa
who had the right equipment to handle my case. So I figured I’d
better come to a specialist in New York.

Bob: I see. And now you need the money to pay for a dental
specialist here in New York to work on your teeth. Is that it?

Plummer: No. Now I need the money to go on to Dublin,
Ireland. I found out there’s no dentist in New York who
specializes in people my size either. But one of them told me
I’m about the same height as a leprechaun. And he assumed that
those little guys all commute into Dublin to have their teeth
fixed. So I want to give it a try. I’ve got one cavity that’s really
killing me.

Bob: Well, there’s nothing more tragic to behold than the
suffering of a fellow human – or whatever you are, sir. So from
our generous Bob and Ray organization, here is this fine gift for
you. It’s a deluxe racing bike from Klingman and Klingman of
Denver.

Plummer: Gee. I don’t know what to say. Being ten-and-a-half
inches tall, I get a lot of inappropriate gifts. But this really takes
the cake.

Bob: No thanks are necessary, sir. Just seeing the smile on your
little face is reward enough. And now back over to Ray at our
main anchor desk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_and_ray

[IDemo]

28. That it bears even a passing rememblance to a human form is evidence enough

that it isn't an "alien" life form. How is it that people are so anxious to believe that E.T., should we ever actually meet him, her or it, would have evolved on an entirely different planet under a distinctly unique set of environmental conditions into a form that we recognize as a cousin of homo sapiens? It's laughably ridiculous, not even the stuff of passable sci-fi.

[cbdo2007]

30. Unless they are the ones who populated Earth with their seedlings, then our general

appearance would probably be similar. How else would life have formed on Earth if it wasn't planted here by aliens?

[IDemo]

33. The earliest life forms originated about 3.8 billion years ago

There is no moment where humankind's distinct genome appeared, nor mammalian. We share a great deal of DNA with a diverse group of life forms on Earth, pointing to a much earlier common ancestor. It doesn't equate that "They" in any way could anticipate the emergence of hominids over billions of years of earthly evolutionary fits and starts. Much less that they would have the patience to wait for the results.

[randome]

34. Oh yeah? How do you explain Prometheus, then? Huh?

[cbdo2007]

43. It isn't about anticipating or having patience....it's just the way it is and has been

for billions of years, and will continue on for billions of years, long after the Earth is gone.

[DirkGently]

45. Except of course that it is the stuff of passable sci-fi, & not illogical at all.

We still haven't figured out how life in a vastly different set of environmental conditions would even work. Not to say that it couldn't, but so far all the focus on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life focuses on Earth-like planets. Rocky, liquid water, similar temperature and atmosphere. So maybe somewhere there are two one-inch sugar cubes having a telephathic conversation while they consume liquid helium cocktails, but we don't know how that biology would even work. And it might be hard to build a spaceship / time-machine / whatever with flippers.

So if our particular flavor of carbon-based, ocean spawning life is, if not the only, one of the most common ways life arises, it's not as wildly ridiculous as you suggest that bipedal creatures with backbones and hands would be the thing that worked somewhere else.

This thing is not that. It's some kind of human, apparently. But it's a pretty good mystery until they figure out more about it, particularly how it could have been alive for several years, if that's actually what happened. Every other crazy-looking corpse thing put forward has turned out to be either a hoax or some severely decayed or deformed animal.

So ... interesting.

And seriously, you rule out all sci-fi with humanoid aliens as not even passable? What's left? Those blobs on the Herculoids?

[IDemo]

49. We have a vast array of alien life forms beyond the imagination of sci-fi writers

below the sea:





and above:




It's not in the realm of possibility that millions of years of evolution on even a very similar planet is going to yield anything resembling a hominid, much less one we can shake hands with. Any biologist can probably outline the astronomical odds against this better than I can.

The other thing arguing against Earthly visitations by alien life forms is simply that any civilization at all more advanced than us (read: all of them) would more likely have moved on to less mortal forms - computerized minds can be backed up, instantly updated with new knowledge, even broadcast to distant regions. Ray Kurzweil suggests that we are on the cusp of such a thing. The idea that aliens who are vastly more advanced than we will continue to pile their purple selves into the galactic equivalent of a Ford Bronco to visit other areas is an anthropomorphism that many sci-fi authors are guilty of (Vulcan, anyone?).

[DirkGently]

56. Astronomical odds are kind of given if you're talking space travel

I love all our crazy buggies and so forth, but those forms are limited. Exoskeletons have limited size, for example. And you'd need something better than pincers to build something complicated. In an Earth-like world, backbones, warm blood, good stereo vision, and opposable thumbs work extremely well. There's no reason to think evolution on other Earthlike worlds wouldn't come up with a similar strategy.

Smart squid I can totally buy. They may be smart already. The Humboldts have some kind of high-speed nerve conduction situation and seem to communicate by flashing their chomatophores. I think they're talking about us.

And Ray Kurzweil is a sweet, brilliant man who takes 5,000 vitamins a day because he is also, sadly, bedbug crazy.

[datasuspect]

32. it's DB Cooper

[Berlum]

37. The Little People

Every culture in the world with an intact oral tradition has remembrances of the Little People.

[SidDithers]

38. Science > Woo. Always...nt

Sid

[darkangel218]

40. Its a freaking alien ffs :)

It looks just like the little guy who was in Men in Black. Look at his head, its not human.


Gawd!

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. Paternity tests prove that the dad is Rick Moranis.

Honey is going to be pissed.



Definitely parasitic twin. Or leprechaun.

[Enrique]

46. that's clearly a baby chupacabra n/t

[anneboleyn]

53. with mange! Ba-da-bum!

[librechik]

48. debunked as being extraterrestrial, probably. But WTH???

[Cleita]

51. As a person who once lived in the Chilean Atacama Desert, I was always

aware of the natural mummification properties of being buried there. My dad had a pre-columbian mummy in his shop as a sort of protector that had been mummified naturally with no other help. His workers liked having an ancestor watching over them. I would have looked for some other kind of primate, like a small monkey species, to be the candidate since it wouldn't have been that impossible to transport such a creature up to the desert region from the Amazon. I am surprised that they said the DNA is human. I think we need more information on this as the whole thing could be a Piltdown Man type prank.

[frogmarch]

58. Fascinating!

Thanks for your interesting post!

I understand that only a small portion of marrow from one of the bones was DNA tested. I wonder if perhaps, along with a bone or two from a human fetus, the skeleton was assembled using other animal bones as well.

The skull contains teeth, but human fetuses have unerupted teeth that would be exposed with the desiccation of soft tissue.

I’m skeptical that the skeleton is that of a deformed 8-year-old human child. I think it could very well be a hoax.