After a decade of speculation about whether it was evidence of aliens, "Ata" was subjected to DNA testing -- and found to be human. They discovered, however, that Ata was a human female, not an alien, and genetically related to South American populations. Using advanced genomic DNA analysis, Bhattacharya and colleagues report a number of new insights into Ata in Genome Research. So Ata has been confirmed to be a human female, and likely either died at birth or was a preterm miscarriage. Ata is therefore not an alien, but a sad result of fatal birth defects and contaminated drinking water in the driest desert in the world.

Source: Forbes March 22, 2018 18:45 UTC