--- title: Scientists Say 6-Inch Skeleton Ata Is a Human Girl description: Ata, a 6-inch-tall skeleton found in Chile in 2003, was originally thought to be an alien. But new research says it was a human girl. canonical: https://time.com/5210714/ata-six-inch-skeleton-human/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-22T17:00:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:57:58.938Z article:section: Science og:title: People Thought This 6-Inch-Tall Skeleton Was an Alien og:description: But new research says it was a human girl og:url: https://time.com/5210714/ata-six-inch-skeleton-human/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: People Thought This 6-Inch-Tall Skeleton Was an Alien twitter:description: But new research says it was a human girl twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Genetic Tests Reveal Six-Inch "Alien" Skeleton Is Actually a Human > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Mar 22, 2018 5:00 PM UTC  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Mar 22, 2018 5:00 PM UTC When a diminutive skeleton — measuring just six inches long, with a tiny, cone-shaped head and only 10 pairs of ribs — was discovered behind an abandoned church in the Atacama region of Chile in 2003, onlookers thought they might have stumbled across an alien. Fifteen years later, researchers have the DNA evidence to prove that the skeleton, nicknamed Ata, is of “purely earthly origin,” [a finding that was published Thursday](https://genome.cshlp.org/lookup/resid/gr.223693.117?view=abstract&uritype=cgi) in the journal _Genome Research._ Even still, plenty of questions remain unanswered. “We really haven’t see another child like that,” says Dr. Atul Butte, the director of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences at the University of California San Francisco and one of the researchers involved in the project. “Anything’s possible.”  Bhattacharya S et al. 2018 Using DNA extracted from Ata’s bone marrow, Butte and his colleagues were able to determine that the skeleton belonged to a human female with a mix of Native American and European heritage. They also found that the skeleton was likely less than 50 years old, and probably owed its weathered appearance to the harsh climate of the Chilean desert where it was found. From there, though, things got murky. Ata’s remarkably tiny size would suggest that she was a stillborn or a fetus, but bones in the skeleton’s hands — a body part commonly analyzed to estimate age — more closely resembled that of a 6- to 8-year-old child, Butte says. Genome sequencing also revealed a number of defects having to do with bone development and growth, some known and some novel, Butte adds. Despite the apparent age of the bones, “the severity of the other malformations — the head, the abnormal number of ribs, all of that — made us think that the child might not have lived very long or was never born,” Butte says. “That’s the guess. But it’s only a guess.” These unanswered questions are exactly what makes the project interesting, Butte says, adding that the complexity of the analysis has encouraged him to look beyond the obvious, even when it comes to more conventional cases. “In medicine we like to say the simplest explanation is probably the right one. But sometimes there is a complicated explanation,” Butte says. “This story started with people thinking this was an alien. Look how much detail we can figure out about this girl now, just from the DNA. 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