Atakama mummy. "Humanoid from Atacama" turned out to be human

Usually all these stories about the mummies of aliens and unseen creatures end with one thing - falsification, juggling and fake. But it's different here...

In October 2003, a collector of Native American history artifacts named Oscar Munoz (Spanish: Oscar Muñoz) explored the abandoned Chilean town of La Noria, which is located about 56 km from the town of Iquique in the Atacama Desert (desierto de Atacama). He discovered a bundle with a small humanoid mummy. Its length was about 15 centimeters and outwardly had a good safety. There were even hard teeth.
He was even called "a stranger from the desert."

Two unusual features caught my eye. Firstly, these are only nine pairs of ribs, in contrast to the twelve usual for a person. Second, and more remarkable, is the mummy's greatly elongated skull. The egghead made him look like a classic movie alien. For this reason, the find was named "Atacama Humanoid".
This creature has a height of 15 centimeters, the head is proportional to the body is large, and the ribs of this creature are 2 less than those of a person. They nicknamed this humanoid in honor of the place of discovery - "Atacama Humanoid". This discovery gave ufologists greater confidence in the existence of an alien mind.

After the grandiose discovery, rumors about the appearance of an alien mind on Earth were quickly dispelled. But 10 years later, a large film screening "Sirius" came out on taps, in which scientists share their views on the existence of aliens and provide reliable information from specialists who have studied the body of a humanoid.
But in spite of everything, skeptics claim that this is a fake and all this is a juggling of facts, although the tomography showed that this is the real body of a real being. Opinions among researchers also differed, but that perhaps the body belongs to a small monkey or the body of a human fetus in late pregnancy.
However, studies carried out with the help of modern equipment - X-rays, tomography, DNA analysis - reveal the most interesting information about the Atacama humanoid:
First, it can't be a monkey. “I can say with 100% certainty that the find is not a monkey skeleton. It's something closer to humans than to chimpanzees," said Harry Nolan, the professor who conducted the genetic analysis.
Secondly, “the skeleton is not an aborted human fetus, this is excluded,” the specialist said.

It took about six months to study the Atakama humanoid in detail at Stanford University in California. The results were made public at a special press conference by research team leader Harry Nolan.
DNA analysis taken from the bone marrow of the ribs showed that the mummy is a rare female human mutation. Moreover, her mother was most definitely from the west coast of South America, that is, apparently, a Chilean.
Research has revealed a previously unknown anomaly in the development of the skeleton. Examination of x-rays and tomography results showed that the density of the epiphasal plates of the knees (cartilaginous growth plates in children at the ends of long bones) corresponds to those of a child of about seven years of age.

The age of the find was also objectively assessed. It turned out that the mummy is relatively young. She is only more than four decades old, although an age comparable to a millennium was not initially excluded. The reason is that the Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on earth, contributing to the imperishability of organic matter.
In 2018, a group of Harry Nolan researchers published a scientific article in the journal Genome Research about the results of a study of the mummy's DNA. Scientists have determined that this is "a girl-child who was either not full-term, or was born much later than the term and died almost immediately after birth." The unusual appearance is due to negative mutations in about 60 genes that led to scoliosis, premature aging, impaired collagen and bone tissue synthesis, an abnormal number of ribs, etc. Sian Halcrow from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and her colleagues from universities in the USA, Sweden and Chile questioned the conclusions of researchers from Stanford University, as they did not find any signs of fetal skeletal abnormalities in the Atakama mummy.

“Understanding the discovered mutations that cause bone aging, as in the case of Ata, may allow us to develop drugs that can help develop and restore bones in people who have been victims of accidents, car accidents or participants in other tragedies ...
Although the whole story began and spread around the world as an alien, in reality it is nothing more than the tragedy of a woman who gave birth to a premature baby who was sold as a bizarre artifact.
The Atacama humanoid is an incredible genetic case from which we must learn the most and help all of humanity in the fight against this problem. Rest in peace "Ata"! - An excerpt from an interview with Professor Nolan for The Guardian.

And they found that these are the remains of a baby with numerous genetic disorders, according to Genome Research. After the discovery of a tiny mummy with a conical head at the beginning of the century, many versions were expressed about its origin - that these are the remains of a deformed human fetus, a humanoid primate, and even an alien.

The mummy of a strange creature was found in 2003 in the Atacama Desert, in the abandoned Chilean city of La Noria, which was founded near the largest deposits of sodium nitrate shortly before the First World War. The length of the found skeleton was about 15 centimeters, it had ten pairs of ribs instead of the usual human 12 pairs and a severely deformed elongated skull. Different versions were expressed about the origin of the Atakama mummy, which was nicknamed "Ata". For example, the creators of the film "Sirius" were sure of the unearthly origin of the remains.

The Chilean collector of Indian artifacts, who found the mummy, sold it soon after the discovery, then the remains were resold again and, in the end, settled in the collection of the Spanish businessman Ramon Navia-Osorio (Ramón Navia-Osorio). A few years ago, the owner allowed American ufologist Steven Greer, co-creator of the movie Sirius, to analyze the mummy using CT scans and X-rays, and Stanford University geneticist Garry Nolan to take bone marrow samples for DNA analysis. . The scan showed that, judging by the development of the bones, the mummy belonged to a 6-8-year-old child. And a partially sequenced genome showed that the mummy definitely belonged to a person, and the remains were no more than a few decades old. For comparison, the researchers used the genomes of other humans and primates, including chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. Moreover, the mummy had a mitochondrial haplogroup B2. This meant that the mother of the child was originally from South America.

In a new study, American geneticists led by Nolan sequenced the entire Ata genome, hoping to find possible mutations that affected the child's abnormal development. The researchers also wanted to more accurately determine the origin and gender of the mummy.

It turned out that the child most likely came from Chile. It was genetically similar to Europeans, East Asians, and Andeans. This combination, judging by previous studies, is typical for the inhabitants of Chile. The authors of the article found two X chromosomes in the mummy's genome, that is, the child was a girl. In addition, the scientists found 64 mutations (including previously unknown ones) in seven genes that are associated with the normal development of the skeleton and connective tissues. With mutations in these genes, a person can develop, including abnormal development of the ribs, congenital lethal dwarfism, malformations of the bones of the skull, osteochondrodysplasia (improper development of cartilage and bone tissue) and osteogenesis imperfecta (increased bone fragility).

The researchers note that given the size of the mummy and the severity of the violations found, most likely the child was born prematurely, possibly already dead, or died shortly after birth, and the bones that were abnormally “mature” for the baby, according to which the authors of the article identified the child at 6-8 years old, were also the result of mutations. Although the authors of the article can only speculate about the reasons for so many mutations, they suggest that nitrates, which have been shown to seriously damage DNA, are to blame. Considering that Atu was found in an abandoned "nitrate" city, this reason seems quite probable.

Two years ago, near the Philippines, on a drifting yacht, the mummy of the captain of the ship. Unusual was not only the place of the find, but also the fact that the body was mummified in just a week. Autopsy results that the man died of a heart attack a week before he was discovered.

In the original version of the note, a factual error was made: in the description of the mummy, instead of 10 pairs of ribs, five pairs were indicated. The editors apologize to the readers.

Ekaterina Rusakova

A miniature skeleton, found in Chile 10 years ago and with its appearance instilled hope in many ufologists to prove that aliens exist, actually turned out to be a man. American scientists came to this conclusion by analyzing DNA. The results of the study were announced in the Hollywood documentary Sirius.

The mummy of the “alien” was found in October 2003 by the Chilean Oscar Munoz, who wandered in search of artifacts in the abandoned city of La Noria in the Atacama Desert. Not far from the ruined church, he found a bundle of white cloth. A humanoid creature measuring only 15 centimeters from the feet to the tops was wrapped in matter. He had hard teeth, a bulging head, and unlike a normal person, only nine pairs of ribs, writes Diario Uno. The creature was immediately given the name "Humanoid Atacama".

In addition to the mystical version that this is an alien skeleton, there have been suggestions that this is a monkey cub or a human embryo. The latter, as it turned out, was closest to the truth.

Six months ago, in connection with the filming of the Sirius documentary, its producer and part-time ufologist Stephen Greer turned to professionals with a request to find out the origin of the anomalous skeleton. For six months, it was studied by employees of Stanford University in California. They gave him X-rays and tomography, but DNA analysis helped to achieve the final results. "We took a great DNA sample from the bone marrow in the mummy's ribs," Greer said.

As a result, the team of researchers concluded that the Chilean find is "an interesting mutation of a male human who died at the age of 6-8 years." “I can say with confidence that this is not a monkey. This is a real person who breathed, ate, digested food. The only question that remains open is how big the creature might be at birth,” said Stanford University geneticist Harry Nolan. The researchers also did not note when this creature lived.

Previously, scientists have refuted the discovery of other anomalous remains - a thousand-year-old "alien" skull found in a Mexican village. The highly elongated and flattened skull, like that of the creature in the Ridley Scott film of the same name, was in fact human. Archaeologists explained that the skull had undergone artificial deformation, which was used in Mesoamerican cultures to distinguish members of different social groups or for ritual purposes.

The doctors who conducted the examination had never seen anything like it in their entire practice. The creature was mummified, only in some places on the mutilated skeleton remains of the skin were preserved. The most surprising thing was the skull: four bone plates formed something that looked more like a helmet. Just seven years later, another similar discovery was made on the other side of the planet, and it was its genetic analysis that most recently made it possible to determine with a high degree of certainty who these mysterious, even frightening biological artifacts really were: one from the Ural town, the second from the Chilean desert. The mystery of the Kyshtym dwarf and the Atakama humanoid is in the Onliner review.

They called him "Alyoshenka"

In the 22 years that have passed since its discovery, a creature from the city of Kyshtym, located between Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, has managed to acquire an incredible number of urban legends - primarily due to the fact that soon after the discovery, this mummy disappeared, remaining only in photographs and frames. mediocre video quality. There is no particular doubt about its physical existence: in addition to video and photographic evidence, there are numerous stories of unrelated witnesses who saw this artifact. However, the reliability of the brightest details of these descriptions is rightly questioned: the circumstances of the birth of the Kyshtym dwarf and the environment where it happened were too peculiar.

The scene of action was not even the relatively large Ural city of Kyshtym, but its nearest southern suburb - the village of Kaolinovy ​​(kaolin is white clay, which was mined in the neighborhood), located on the shores of Lake Anbash. One May day in 1996, an elderly local resident, whose name was Tamara Prosvirina, went on her usual walk to the cemetery. The first important nuance of this whole story was that the citizen Prosvirina suffered from a mental illness, she constantly heard certain “voices” in her head, at the request of which the study of the necropolises took place. From there, the woman regularly brought home the small trophies she discovered, one of which was the object, which later received the nickname "Kyshtym dwarf".

Lake Anbash, in the vicinity of which the Kyshtym dwarf was discovered

Prosvirina herself called him Alyoshenka, because she mistook the creature for a child, and a living child, capable of eating and making certain sounds similar to a whistle. The pensioner began to actively share the fact of the appearance of a “son” in her house with her neighbors. They were aware of the woman's medical problems and in the end behaved in the most natural way in a similar situation. In July of the same year, Prosvirina was taken away by orderlies and sent for another course of rehabilitation to a local psychiatric hospital.

In August 1996, law enforcement agencies became aware of Alyoshenka. As usual, it happened quite by accident. The suspects in one of the criminal cases they were investigating were a local resident, according to one version, the tenant of Prosvirina's daughter-in-law, according to another, their distant relative. Be that as it may, for some reason he told the policemen that he was the happy owner of an “alien”, as if he had found him dead in an empty apartment of Prosvirina, who was undergoing treatment. By this time, only skeletal remains remained of Alyoshenka, which, nevertheless, deeply impressed the investigators.

The creature was a twisted body about 25 centimeters long. The shape of the skull, similar to a helmet with a crest, large eye sockets, thin arms and legs really resembled an alien, at least the stereotypical image of him created by media efforts.

Major Vladimir Bendlin, an investigator from the Kyshtymsky police department, who eventually became aware of the dwarf, confiscated his remains and on August 13, 1996, in one of the police stations of the city, in the presence of attesting witnesses and criminologists, videotaped the mummy and measured it - this is how the most serious evidence appeared that Alyoshenka existed not only in the imagination, altered by mental illness and excessive alcohol consumption.

After all, otherwise this story really looks like a fantasy that was born in a protracted drunken stupor that seized the Russian outback in those years. From a modern point of view, a lot is shocking. At the request of Investigator Bendlin, the creature was examined by local pathologists, who confirmed its biological origin. Nevertheless, the body did not interest the colleagues and the major's superiors. Neither a serious investigation into the circumstances of Aleshenka's birth, nor an examination of his remains were carried out. It is obvious that in Kyshtym of the 1996 model there were not the slightest conditions for this. But why regional or even federal resources were not involved remained a mystery. In the end, the investigator Bendlin did not find anything better than to hand over the mummy to some ufologists who proliferated at that time, among whom she disappeared without a trace. When journalists, including Japanese ones, became interested in the story of Alyoshenka, it was already too late. The “son” found in the cemetery disappeared, and the only thing left to operate was Bendlin’s video recording and the stories of “eyewitnesses”, many of which shocked with implausibility.

For example, Prosvirina's daughter-in-law and one of her neighbors later claimed to have seen the "alien" alive. He was then chubby (it turns out that he shrunk after death), ate caramel and tried to whistle. At the same time, for some reason, none of these self-proclaimed "witnesses of Aleshenka" had the idea to notify the relevant authorities about his appearance in the life of the sick Tamara Prosvirina. According to them, they took him for a "little animal", which eventually died of starvation when the pensioner who found him was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

In fact, much in the circumstances of the appearance of the Kyshtym dwarf becomes clear if you try to understand the context in which it happened.

Alyoshenka was “lucky” to end up in a deeply asocial environment of a provincial depressive city in the midst of the dashing nineties. He was discovered, and then “seen alive” by people who suffered not only from psychiatric diseases, but also from hopeless drunken alcoholism. Local journalists found out that Prosvirina's apartment, in the absence of the hostess, was, in fact, a brothel, where, of course, they did not pay attention to the presence of the body of a certain creature in the room. The background for this was the flourishing of interest in "paranormal phenomena", in which even phenomena explicable from the point of view of ordinary logic were interpreted by default in a distorted way. The tabloid press, which was at the peak of its popularity, only fueled mass hysteria and, in pursuit of the right headline, often financed similar “eyewitness stories”. Even a modest reward, sometimes an extra bottle of vodka, were able to establish very strong contact with the “alien civilization”.

The level of social degradation was such that both police officers and medical workers believed in the "alien", so unlike the usual standard, who seriously argued that the truth was somewhere nearby, that Alyoshenka could not be a man. The history of the humanoid Atacama says that he still could.

Atacama humanoid

In 2003, a strange mummy about 15 centimeters long was discovered in one of the abandoned Chilean mining villages in the Atacama Desert. The elongated skull, large eye sockets again looked more like an alien from the movies than an ordinary person. Ufologists and other lovers of the unknown, who lost the Kyshtym dwarf, have a new idol, as if direct proof that we are not alone in the Universe. It took real scientists 15 years to get the genetic material that would allow them to get closer to the truth.

In March 2018, an article written by a group of scientists led by Stanford University professor Harry Nolan appeared in the peer-reviewed American scientific journal Genome Research. As a result of the study of the mummy's genome, it turned out that it belongs to a girl, definitely a Chilean, who died almost immediately after birth. The authors of the text identified 64 mutations in 7 genes associated with skeletal development. The girl's skeleton was horribly deformed, and the reason for this could be the poisoning of her mother with nitrates. Near the place where the mummy was found, there was a deposit of sodium nitrate.

Much later than Aleshenka's disappearance, when his story became a well-known urban legend, Russian scientists were already able to isolate DNA from stains of biological material left on the fabric in which the body was wrapped before his only video filming. Subsequent analysis showed that the Kyshtym dwarf was a premature girl with numerous skeletal mutations. And in this area, alas, there is nothing surprising in this.

Kyshtym disaster

On September 29, 1957, at the Mayak chemical plant in the then top-secret city of Chelyabinsk-40, due to the failure of the cooling system of one of the containers with radioactive waste, they self-heated, ending in an explosion. Several tens of tons of highly active waste were thrown into the air to a height of 1-2 kilometers, forming a cloud, which subsequently dispersed over an area of ​​23 thousand square kilometers. It was the first major radiation accident on the territory of the USSR, which directly and indirectly affected the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of people. 23 villages that fell into the infection zone were resettled and demolished. Kyshtym himself, who was 11 kilometers from the explosion site, was not injured: the radioactive trail mainly stretched northeast of the city, but it is quite possible that it was this emergency that led to the birth of Aleshenka 39 years later.

A premature baby, most likely, 20-25 weeks old with numerous developmental disabilities, apparently, was born in the vicinity of Kyshtym, possibly in the village of Kaolinovy ​​itself. Frightened by the appearance of the girl, the mother probably decided to get rid of her and took the body to the cemetery, where, after some time, Tamara Prosvirina found him.

Unfortunately for many, and in this case there was no contact with aliens, but there was another human tragedy from an endless series, by chance (or the Mayak plant) became the property of millions.