Teensy alien-looking skeleton from Chile poses a medical mystery

[Lugal Zaggesi]

5. Obviously this skeleton wasn't an ancient alien

The researchers wanted to find out whether some rare disorder could explain the anomalous skeleton — for instance, it had just 10 ribs as opposed to 12 in a healthy human. They hoped to determine the age at which the organism died, as its size suggested a preterm fetus, a stillborn or a deformed child. They also thought the DNA would confirm whether it was human or perhaps a South American nonhuman primate.

The remains showed skull deformities and mild underdevelopment of the mid-face and jaw, the researchers found. The skull also showed signs of turricephaly, or high-head syndrome, a birth defect in which the top of the skull is cone-shaped.

The genome sequencing suggested that the creature was human, though 9 percent of the genes didn't match up with the reference human genome; the mismatches may be due to various factors, including degradation, artifacts from lab preparation of the specimen or insufficient data.

This was a human experimented on by ancient aliens for research and fun:

Ack ack, ACK !