Thinking Sideways: Atacama Skeleton

guest co hosts and Steve special guests this week. Yeah yeah, And this week we're going to talk about a mystery. It's gonna be a little one. It's a it's this is like literally, this is the jokes I've been hearing all week. This is going to be a jo Yeah. Well, what if we're not careful? You mean, if we're careful. Yes, it's about a tiny alien. I just gave it away mane this week. As you know, because you probably read

the title, uh and maybe even the description. We're going to talk about the ata Comma skeleton, also often referred to as the ata Comma humanoid or alien or I don't know, or proof proof for aliens, yes, proof for the little green guy, literally, the little green Yeah, that's plains. Why we haven't seen there? You let their saucers because they must be tiny garbage. Well yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Actually it makes sense. That's why we were all convinced

by a hubcap for a while. Ye's right size. Okay, we're done. Okay, so our story, just to briefly do a quick little overview here. Briefly quickly, Yep, in two thous three, I'm pretty sure that was the year that this was discovered, but it's it's hard to tell because some of the stories are different. But we're going to say in two thousand three, but a token quote quote unquote collector made a very interesting discovery and a pouch in the Ottacama Desert, which is mostly in chili Um.

It's about forty one thousand square miles, which, for you people who are not civilized, is a hundred and five thousand square kilometers. There's very little population there. It's mostly just deserted desert towns from the nitrate era. Yea, they closed down the minds and the towns. I was going to ask, did not you mean because it was nitrate mining? Yeah, okay, that's got it. No, from the I've never heard of the nitrate. I never heard of that. You must have

just forgotten slipped. Yeah, and obviously have one some wine clothes down. You really don't to stick around because there's no water in the desert, in that particular desert, Yeah, there's no right, we were talking earlier. It's the is it the driest place on earth? It is the driest place on earth. So take that everyone who thought that you know where it was. So this guy while scavenging found it was he was in a church. He was kind of digging around he used to find he was

trying to find things that were like worth money. I think I I in one version of this that I heard, he was it was actually he actually found it in a graveyard next to the church, which was in an abandoned town. Yeah, or she might have even been like grave robbing. Basically, you're called he's described as a token collector,

but really he's just a scavenger. Yeah, oh yeah, totally, just a scavenger, just just raiding these deserted towns for anything that might be worth anything, which I mean, they're deserted town so it's not like anybody's gonna get upset about it. But he's scavenging yeah, pretty much so Barry just slightly under the ground. I don't think it was very deep. He found a white off that was tied

with a violet ribbon. Violet the color ribbon, uh, and it contained a skeleton that was about six inches long, with a slightly elongated skull and only ten ribs. To to make this story a little weirder, I'm just gonna throw a quick little thing in here and then we'll

talk a little bit about it more. In records that are dating back to I think it was three, a similar six inch tall humanoid skeleton was featured in ripley Believe It or Not, the Ripley's Believe It or Not book that came out then, and it was also, you know, like I said, a six inch tall humanoid skeleton. He was called Atta Boy because he was found believe it or not, in the Atacama Desert, not far from where

Atta was found, which is what they called. This new skeleton's speculated and probably all kinds of these things floating around the Atacama Desert. Yeah, probably there is so dry, you know, Yeah, things get momified. Yeah. I was going to say, is that it's uh that desert it's going to suck the moisture out and preserve things obscenely quickly. Yeah, yeah,

and really well usually too. Okay, So, as we said, this guy his name was Oscar Munez, and I can't find anything about him except for, as I said, I think he's just he was just a scavenger. But the skeleton was eventually sold to the current owner. His name was Ramon Naviasorio and he's a Spanish businessman. Not was is sorry, he is currently still living, still owns the skeleton. It's not in his hands so these days, right, did he get it back or did he you know he did?

He got it back? Um, he never was without it. It was when it was examined. It was examined in Spain, in Barcelona, where he is. So it's my understanding that he's never not had possession of it. What is Why would you want this creepy little thing and kind of cool? I don't know, I kind of it. I would take one, Yeah, totally, would you not? Do you also collect those weird dolls that have the eyes that follow you? Though? No, I don't those scary. No. We had those when I was

a kid and I did not like them. Yeah, I don't remember that toy. They actually followed you around. No, No, they just appeared to, you know, like paintings do. Yeah, somehow, And I don't totally know how, because Ramon had this thing for a long time, and until two thousand nine it had kind of just been this obscure thing that he owned. He didn't really talk about it that much.

But a guy by the name of Stephen Greer found out about this skeleton in a He was at a conference and somebody off handedly mentioned it to him, this tiny little skeleton that they knew, some guy who owned knew some guy who owned. That's that's better. That's more better. It's pretty close. Yeah, And so Mr Greer or seven, we'll just call him Stephen. He managed. Mr Greer managed to convince Ramone that he could investigate the skeleton. So in two thousand nine, that's when kind of this this

whole story kind of started to hit the mainstream. Would you agree with that he is the one that raised all the attention? He sure did. And then when did the movie come out? Has two thousand twelve. Yes, I know we're going to get into that, but yeah, we'll talk about that in a little bit. So Mr Greer assembled a team of um, we're going to call them air quote respected scientists unquote. Some of the some of the people on the team I think are actually professionals

in their fields. Well, I think some of them are actually good, like good scientists. Some of the research that I've read, I trust these people are competent as seven or maybe not so much. And some of the other people on his team maybe not so much. But we'll make sure to make note when we believe people and when we don't believe people, because you know us, we're good at that. Um so so yeah. Mr Greer and his team went to Barcelona in two thousand and twelve

to kentuct extensive research on the skeleton. The team was headed up by Dr Gary Nolan, who, after some googling, you know, he's a lot of UFO stuff for this guy. He's definitely upologist's into it, Yeah Nolan, Dr Nolan. But he is also a geneticist at Stanford, same same guy. Yeah, so I guess he's probably not a total hack. I don't know, It's hard to tell with these people sometimes, right Yeah, yeah, probably yeah. Uh so, anyway, um, we'll we'll talk a little bit more about the other members

of the team, or at least one other member. Okay, later, but I do want to just first start out by describing the skeleton. I know that we have some listeners that you know, listen us while they're driving things like that. So let's talk about what the skeleton looked like and what makes it so strange other than the fact that it's six inches tall. Um, So let's go with that.

The team examined atta atta ata um and they took DNA samples from the distal ends of the anterior ribs, which is the fancy way of saying that they took samples from the front ends of the ribs, which should have been connected to the stern um. There's no stern um on this skeleton, which isn't really that weird to me, I guess, and the run I don't think so. I'm not sure how well formed the stern um is young age, yeah,

I think that's well, at what age that's the question. Well, yeah, that is a big question on this, but it doesn't really I mean, you, in a human fetus, the sternham forms, it's there. I think the sternham forms in like the fourth or fifth month. Once the rib cage firms up and all the organs have developed. Then it kind of because you know, it shouldn't create too early because it could make the cavity too small. So I think that that's one of the reasons that it waits longer right there.

But there is a big dispute about this critters, Yeah, there is, yeah, And well, we are absolutely going to get into that at a minute. But so that's where they took the bone the DNA samples from. And there was bone marrow in the skull as well, so they

took a little bit of that for testing. And I've seen I've seen a lot of hubbub about if you see photos of this and you see the back of the head, there's a hole in it, and they say that's because they punched that hole to get the d N A. Yes, But you also hear a lot of people on the internet say, oh, no, that's obviously the cause of death. Okay, So actually I can clarify this.

They took CT scans and X rays before they started to do anything exploratory, and you can see in the CT scans there's a fracture at the back of the head. It's not a huge hole in the back of the head where they had to cut through. But there is a visible fracture in the back of the skull. That that's what they're talking about when they say that's the cause of death. Well, I've seen somewhere. Or I guess misinformed is probably a better way of saying. It's their misinformed.

That big hole. As far as I can tell, they did cut it to get to extract started material out. Yeah, I am not of the impression that that whole existed prior to the test with that, but there was there was a fracture. Yeah, there was actually a photograph to from from prior where there was not where ye. Um, But that's good. So, like I said, they took X rays and CT scans of the tiny skeleton to make sure that they could evaluate the body for any abnormalities

before they did any again exploration. So they were they were following good procedures. They were following actually they're falling exceptional procedure. Yeah, everything was done in a totally sterile environment. Um. Everything was documented. People were taking pictures and filming the entire time, which is really important also so you can document if somebody happened to do something that caused damage

to it. You could come back later and say, Okay, did one of us do this while we were exploring or did not? So this isn't like when they did all the testing on the dinosaur bones and determined that they were part ostrich. Yeah, no, not like that. Okay, no, So at least during this part, during the examination, the procedures were they were very well followed. So ada. As I've mentioned again and again, six inches long, which is, um,

we're tall. You referred to as six inches tall? Yeah, tall, long, tall, which is uh. I think it's fifteen centimeters is what I see. That's about about equal. One place I saw it described as a hundred and fifty millimeters, which I thought was silly at more accurate breaking into millimeters, I don't know. Maybe yeah, anyway, so it's about that size again for our not in non American measurers measures. Yeah, it's got a goofy looking a head though it's very elongated.

It's kind of you know, what it reminds me of is the crystal skull from Indiana Jones was terrible movie, you know what you're talking about. So it's a very long oval skulls. Yeah, and you can see, there's some bone abnormalities, just like in the formation of it um, so it doesn't seem as though the skull was crushed postmortem to be that like squeezed collapsed on itself a little bit. I see what you're Yeah, And like I said, there's a fracture on the back right side of the skull,

which is often ruled as the cause of death. There's a tooth in the jaw. Actually, I don't know if you guys actually got a chance to look at this or not. It's kind of interesting. There's an actual tooth in the jaw. It's not like little infant you know, Newblin's. It's like an actual They describe it as a mature tooth, which is interesting. Yeah, you know again interesting. Yeah, it's unusual. It is unusual. There's a fracture on the right arm,

just above the elbow. The skeleton has just ten ribs, which is weird. You know, humans have twelve ribs. Everybody knows that, and after two months in utero, a human fetus well developed all twelve ribs, mentioning usually yeah, and almost every circumstance. Yeah, yeah. The during the CT scan, it was revealed that there are there are lungs in the this mummy skeleton thing, or or were well remains of the and quote what appears to be the remains

of a heart structure unquote. And this has caused the team at Stanford and also pretty much every researcher to look at this stuff to believe that it's it's a real skeleton of a real living thing. It's not just a little it's not just a hoax, not just a little curved If this is If this is a hoax, this is the best hoax. And I saw a very tongue in cheek thing recently when I was reading about this.

I think it was actually just like an hour or two ago that said the quote was this couldn't be a hoax unless it was hoaxed by aliens like God. Of course you would go there a sense of humor. Yeah. Really. There's also a fairly pronounced curve to the spine. Both there's a hump like, but I think that's just from the way it was preserved. Yeah, hump near the shoulders kind of. But also the spine curves like in a serious curve to it. Yeah, well, I don't think it's

an ass curve. I don't think it ever curves back, is the thing. It's just to see it just curves the one way. And again, I we don't know. I don't know certainly if it's just from the mummiphization, the mummifizing of it, and also being wrapped, being wrapped up in the cloths and the breast while there's still moisture in the body and dries out, it's gonna stiffen in whatever position it's at. Yeah, and there's one more thing to mention, Well, I guess there's a few more things

to mention. I want to mention how tiny the little feet are, tiny, tiny little feet and yeah, but yeah, smaller than mine, but also like proportionately tiny, right would you? I would say you can almost miss them, almost at the little bottom of the legs. I didn't. I didn't find them to be out of proportion, But then again, it is so small to begin with. That that's why I don't find them to be disproportionately small. That's fair. The other the other thing that I have to mention,

shin is the knees. And knees, it turns out, for those of you who don't know, are pretty good way of determining determining age, early years in life in humans. Yeah, because when we're born, we don't really have knee caps, which is a misnomer. We do have knee caps, they're just all cartilage and then they harden over time. Yeah, but you but when you're born, you basically don't have knee caps. And you can look at the X rays

of knees. It's very interesting. There's like, no, they don't look like knee basically when you're an infant, they just don't um and it's hard to describe. So I would encourage you guys to go out and google this because it is kind of fascinating. I didn't really know this about me. Bies look like it basically just looks like there's two leg bones and there's like a little there's little little balls of bones on either side, but there's no there's no noticeable joint and there's no cap or

anything like that. Formed babies are weird. Babies are really weird. Yeah, So they stay car large until you're about three, and then they cause file all the way up until you're about six to eight, depending on you know, your own personal development. But apparently, and I know Steve has some things to say about this that will tackle in the theories sections. But apparently Adda had fully formed kneecaps, which again it's hard to tell because he's so tiny that

it's really hard to see what's going on. And I haven't I haven't seen anything that looks like a knee cap to me. It's interesting, right, It's it's hard. Like I said, it's hard to tell. And we will, we'll grab onto this a little bit more in the We're going to come back to um but but you will see that around and again it's it's hard. I'm kind off on it, like I don't know. I'm also not a scientist, so I can't look at that and be like, oh, yeah,

totally that's a knee cap. I don't really can you. Yeah, of course I got knees. I know what they look like the inside you Sam, in the inside of your knees, right, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I'm thinking. Yeah. So people go ahead and say that the with the knees and the presence of a developed tooth, that would put this being at having lived for some time at least to hear outside outside of the can't be. It can't be. The sculet

of a fetus. Right, that's the that's the thing that you draw, that's the conclusion that you would draw from this information. Again, we're going to talk about all this stuff in the theory. So, like everybody stopped yelling at me, please, yeah, because there's another really big twist. It's a really big twist, and that is you remember I said they took DNA from the ribs and they tested that as well as

the bone marrow found in the skull. And apparently the report is that ADA only share there's one percent of its DNA with humans. Don dune done for comparison, for comparison, we share about our DNA with cats, with cows and with bananas. So I shouldn't cos I guess no, I guess not. Yeah. And there's there's some variants. There's there's variants between humans, right, that's that's an actual thing. There's genetic variants. But it's about point five percent variants. Yeah,

half percent variants between any Homo sapien. One last thing, I keep saying that, right, I keep saying, Oh, on one last thing I have to mention. But one last thing, it's fine, this is you you have now gone to the same level as TV News, which is we're going to drop the story, but first we're going to tell you about this. We're gonna come back with this main story. But now we're going to go to the weather. So that's what she's that's it's not annoying when they do

that means brilliant, brilliant. Okay, we'll be back after this word from our sponsors. Yeah, one last thing again, I was actually the second to last thing, um, and then we'll talk about the weather in Edinburgh. Yeah, if you can say all the names. Yeah, Well, nobody really knows

how old this thing is. Obviously when they first found it, they thought, oh my god, this thing is like millennia because because it was mommified and it didn't look like anything we knew about, and they were like, well, maybe it's some like pre homo sapien type thing, Maybe it's a Neanderthal, maybe it's you know, who knows. And they've come to the conclusion since then that it's like a couple of decades old, not the most Yeah. Yeah, um. But as I mentioned, Ripley of Ripley's Believe it or not,

his name is Robert Robert Ripley. He's involved in the case, Like I said, I'm sorry he was he was sort of involved, kind of in a way. You guys know, Ripley was obsessed with shrunken heads. Yeah, like obsessed, which I kind of think shunken heads are awesome. You know how many times I have found myself in front of the computer at twelve o'clock at night, drunk and googling shrunken heads and trying to figure out if the website that says I can buy one is legit or not.

I feel like I need to have a conversation with you about your adult, mature choices that you're making mid night and you're choosing to google shrunken heads, which makes me a little concerned about you. That's a really weird And what I want to know about these websites is how does it work? Do you like, do you have to cut somebody's head off and mail it to them and they shrink it for you? But is it also like are there like hot shrinking? They're authentic, They're authentic

from natives. I don't know. I was drunk. Can we keep going? Please? Very concerned? Actually we're gonna have an intervention later. Well, we wrapped this up I'm gonna go out in the eBay and see if there's anything out there. I'm sure there is. Yeah, probably is. Yeah. Anyway, on on Ripley's Shrunken Heads Quest for the Shrunken Head, which is an actual book by the way, it's Ripley's Quest for the Shrunken Head. I almost bought it. I came closer than I ever have to buying a book for

the podcast. So there's that. Um, he found this tiny skeleton in nineteen in the nineteen thirties, early nineteen thirties, he found this tiny skeleton he called at a Boy. He found his in Peru. But the at a common desert does actually go all the way up into Peru. It's like I said, it's really really big dessert. So um, yeah, Ripley called the skeleton at a boy. And that's that. They look vaguely kind of similar, not really, not really actually at all. So they're boys. They are both three.

Tall boy looks more akin to a shrunken head in terms of the shape and the texture in the photos that I've seen. I think atta boy is kind of cute, not like the skeleton, but I think it's cute that Ripley called him that. Yeah, I think it's kind of a cute name. Yeah, so an Atta boy does look different. They don't really look the same Atta Boy and Adda they. Yeah, I think it's true that the resemblance pretty much ends at their height. I would say that. Yeah, Okay, theories

were there. I guess we are aliens. Let's start with hoax. No, I don't think so. I actually don't think that there's anybody who seriously thinks the hoax, except for the anonymous forum user here and there who says, no, that's a hoax. Didn't you know it's easy to think it's a hope. Oh yeah, I thought it was a hoax he first started to read about it, and then once I saw the stuff about the CT scans, I knew, okay, right there, that proves it's not actually carved woodn't figuring. Yeah, so yeah,

it's not a hoax. Yeah. Also, probably not a cryptod, but you'll see that around. Is this a fairy? No, it could be. No wing structure, wings would have wings, have to have bones in them, actually have wings. So yeah, we don't know that. We don't know anything else. Could it be? Could it be a smurf? It could be. It could be, uh, the South American version of a

Leprichn's South American Bigfoot. It could Yeah. Yeah, I wish, I wish you guys were in the studio to see with how much sincerity Joe just said that there was no laugh in his face for a moment. It was good. It's totally dead. Okay, So those two out the window. Cool, that the scene of our theories. Okay, it's not okay. Next I guess is aliens? Yeah there, Uh, they're obviously that theory has been put out there. So we have

to talk a lot. Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah, a lot of people think this is like the remains of an alien. Well, and one of the things I will mention is there is a strong history of reported UFO activity around the Ottacama Desert. There's a strong history of reported UFO activity around most places. Steve, Yeah, I'm just putting it in perspective. Also, the theory is is, uh, you know that this thing is an alien? It kind

of frankly, it looks really alien. It does the shape of the skull in the size, you know, to conceptualize of something being that size and like living is crazy. Well, you know, there's many creatures on our planet that are that are timing. But that's the problem is is that unless maybe there's an alien race and they figured out a way to save space on the interstellar trips to

shrink themselves go down to six inches tall. Well, no, this is this thing is much like was it the first or the second Men in Black where there was the little guy that drove the human sized robot? Ye, I mean that's that's exactly what this would be. You mean, how long could you really survive if you're that size? Though? Would you? My big question stators would all eat you. I mean you'd be snacks. Owls will be snatching you out of the skies or whatever. The equipment. Well, I guess.

I mean the argument would be that you might be from a planet that was so high gravity that everything was small, you know, so you could feasibly be the largest thing you could think. It could be a race of shrimpkins from Futrauma, you guys, remember that. Yeah, so when Bender becomes God and then meet God, they're just tiny little humans that live on him. It could have been that. I mean, yeah, and I guess this is probably a good time to mention um doctor Greer. Mr Greer,

he's a doctor. He's a doctor. He was a medical doctor. He was an e R doctor. He's actually he was a practicing doctor. And then he sort of went off the deep end and he left a nice way of saying it. Yeah, he left his practice. He did leave his practice. U g our listeners may be familiar with The Serious, the documentary Serious, which is basically tries to prove that aliens are real. It's about an hour long. We talked about Gary McKinnon episode. Yeah, it's actually forty

eight minutes long. I found it on YouTube. Okay, eight minutes in fifty something seconds. You're welcome to all minister commercials. Yeah, that's perfect. Uh. And Dr Greer's the guy who's in charge of that thing. Well, he's he is in control of c STEA, which stands for the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. And he started ad in the mid two thousands, I want to say, and then it was sometime I think it was the late two thousands

or two thousand tens somewhere in there. He then began the Disclosure Project, which is the one where it's all the ex government employees testifying to him on camera about aliens. Yeah, he's a major uthologist. He is, he is, he is. I'm not making fun of him when I say this. He has bought in quite heavily to the belief and he's very committed to it. But that makes me question

him quite a lot. Yeah, and it makes me question with things like this just because they think there's that confirmation bias um, particularly something like this that is kind of open to interpretation. There. It is hard to know what this thing is for sure. But the fact that you know, you I guess, I don't know, it's hard.

It's yeah, it's hard when you're you're hearing a uthologist constantly saying, oh, it's obviously an alien, it's proof constantly, never never once saying I don't know what probably isn't an alien. Well. The other thing about guys like Greer is they, you know, they tend to be a magnet for lunatics who coming to them with crazy stories and

people who are like minded. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I mean, but also, like, that's not to say that everybody who believes in UFOs or aliens is a lunatic, because right, that's what mind it in terms of I believe in or want to, but there's a broad spectrum of that. There are crazy people in all walks of life, yes, and there are extra crazy people in some walks of life. Which are you know this one is one of them? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

So that's a problem already. And I my one concern with Greer being involved involved as he is in this because he was you only have one concert well, no, this is this is one of my big concern is that the story of how Ada was found and all of this stuff, I've never been able to find the source of it. In other words, you always hear the story, but you never find anything from the origin of that where it actually began in the early accountings of it

reported anywhere anything. It's just it popped up and it popped up on the radar. From what I found, there's a the guy that actually found it. You can find the first the first publication of talking about this in the media at all um and it was around the time when the that scavenger found it. But it was when was that again, thou three ish, But it was in a tabloid in Chile that was the first announcement.

So again, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, Okay, you can confirm that it did happen at a time, but the equivalent of the weekly World News reported on it and not that boy Yeah yeah, but which which is kind of a bummer because we do know what exists and we do know it's real. But they were the only ones who didn't cry hoax immediately, so they printed it. And then but and I guess

to that point, Greer never tells the whole story. He always just says, oh, a token hunter, token collect he's got, he's got a very sanitized but he doesn't ever say like he was robbing graves in the church. He you know, he doesn't say anything about that. They always say it in this kind of amorphous like pouch. He never says it was in a white cloth, it was this velvet tot. You know, all of the kind of nitty gritty details

that almost humanize it he doesn't ever talk about. So I think to that point he is, I mean, he's he's trying to sew it a little more towards If you're just saying, well, it was found in a pouch just in the desert, that sounds way more like an alien died or got dropped off. The remains of an alien got dropped off then because they have a very original and pouches. I don't know, it just more than like it was found in a grace in a church,

wrapped in what in white and purple? You know, It's that sounds way more human than it was found in a pouch in the desert. You see what I'm saying. Yeah, all right, well that's I'm going to let the Greer issue go that. I mean, it's really that's just I really really question whenever he's involved. Yeah, well that's fair, and um the alien stuff. Do you have anything else to add to the alien theory? To that? He the well, if it is an alien, then how does how does

this happen? Human DNA? Okay, well, actually that's a good segue into our next theory, which is that it's an alien human hybrid um. But that goes down the crazy rabbit hole because the it's mostly it's mostly Greer being a proponent or being the most vocal proponent of this theory. This is his theory actually is that it's a hybrid, and it's it goes kind of from what if it's an alien human hybrid to what if we are all alien human hybrid that's what we are. That's how I

means existed, That's how we came about. So then we would share N one. We're not actually alien human hybrids because we're humans. So whatever our ancestor wasn't made right that we're alien I don't know, Neandredthal hybrids or something. Okay, you know the things that we branched off from that they went off to die, but they were very humanoid.

They were you know, we were like them. Uh, and then we changed somehow and the aliens came in, came to Earth, they were slumming with Neanderthals, and then they went home. Yeah, so Earth is what like the dance club of It's okay, I guess we can kind of go into this. Um. I don't want to make this whole episode about this, but the theory there are two theories on this. Won't You're looking at me like I'm

crazy person, but I'm just gonna keep talking. Um. One of the theories is that it was it's a controlled experiment that aliens who are hyper intelligent came to Earth and wanted to It's like controlled evolution, that they altered the DNA of Neanderthals to create Homo sapiens and now they're watching the experiment play out. Yes, the other theory is that's along game. The other theory is that aliens, I guess there's a lot more than that. Aliens, in

order to survive, came an inter there. Yeah, so in order to elongate their species had to kind of alter what their species was. So they came to intermingle their people with our people and that totally changed and progressed into Homo sapiens. Or yeah, nightclub like they were curious Sea took off again. Uh yeah, So those are the three like main theories of the alien hybrid human hybrid theory.

So then this theory would be that this was a subset that went a little wrong but has survived, maybe in the desert, or maybe they are they're the ones who were the initial ones, and that they bred with Neanderthals and so were the size basically of Neanderthals. But the problem if that is the case, then it would have to be much much much older, unless it was

coming to check up on us. So if it was the controlled so like if the if the base there, your theory was that it's a controlled evolution the long game basically, right, you come and check on your long game. Right, you observed them. So if he this thing, this alien in this theory died while observing us, then yeah, ten years whatever. They're very tiny aliens, the wardens are. It'sy bitsy, yeah, I think. Um. I still though, I still don't buy

that this thing was an alien because DNA. I agree, But so those are hybrid that's impossible too, because our for example, cats and dogs. Candidate read that's true, you know, and so we'd be a little further humans and bananas cannot interbreed. That's true. Yeah, No, I mean, I think that's a valid interesting point. The other thing I guess we should probably bring up at this very moment in time is that it's not that we only share of

the DNA. It's that it was like eight or nine percent of the DNA wasn't was unable to be read from the samples that they got from autumn um, which doesn't so it doesn't mean that they didn't match. It just meant that they couldn't because it was too correctly unreadable, which it's not uncommon for that to happen in DNA samples to have a portion of it. Yeah, particularly post

word on DNA. So this is this is why Greer bothers me so much, because he's the one who says it's human DNA, but we don't know what the other eight Well, no we don't. We kind of probably do. But it's not unusual. Of the DNA that was readable was human. It's just of the total sample was unreadable. Their credit, you know, on almost all of the websites that you read about this DNA, they do. They do add the caveat that research on the DNA is ongoing.

Of course that they will they will reveal more as they know it, which at least that better DNA out of him. It's possible. And also the this is one of the reasons that because I used to think it was kind of old and now they've taken no more than two decades, just because the the DNA has degraded somewhat, but there's still viable. Exactly if it was a lot older than there'd be a lot less read. Yeah. So next is the theory that it's human. And this is

again typical Devon style. We've got a couple of different bullet points here, Yes we do. So let's start with Human Comma Shrunken. Oh but Ripley, Yeah, we come back to Ripley here. Um. Ripley was very he was a very honest showman. He he liked to kind of discount these like weird sideshow things that he found a lot. He was very famous for it. Like he would go around and find these you know who was a mermaid

man skeleton and display it. But say, this is the part that's the monkey skeleton, and this is the part that's the fish skeleton. It's not real, but it's interesting nonetheless, right. Uh. And so he was one of the first people despite his which is why I believe it or not. You can believe it if you want or not or not. In here your reason to like not. I remember watching that show and did that all the time. We watched

it too, And he goes, believe it or not? Yeah, yeah, then what what wasn't the guy from Star Trek on it at one point when they tried to resurrect it, the guy who played Will Riker Star Trek Next Generation wasn't he wasn't he the host for it? I don't know. I'd have to look it up enough for me to look it up. Jack remember that that was the old one. Yeah, you know it is at the end of it. Are

not because they had that weird voice. Yeah. So shrunken heads, just briefly, if you guys don't know how they made. I mean, I think everybody in this room knows made, but it's possible. What you do is you run them through the dryer too long and you get it wet. You put it back in its Yeah it's perfect. Yeah, less itchy though a little bit. Yeah. So shrunken heads. The way they do it is they cut a hole in the back of the skull or back of the head,

the scalp, thank you. They pull all the bones out, They put little red berries where the eyes should be, and so them shut. And then they put a woodball all the orifice. Close your nostrils, your eyes, your mouth. The mouth is held in place by three palm fronds. Apparently it's the traditional thing. Who came up with this idea, I don't know. I still think they're interesting. But then the skin is put around a ball and then pulled

tight after it's boiled. Yeah, after it's boiled, shrink it. Yeah, And then it's put there and so it looks like it's on a skull, and so that's how that happens. So h Ripley said that his Atta boy was just a shrunken whole body, shrunken thing, which I guess I kind of believe because it doesn't really look like there are any bones in there. It just kind of looks like it's leathery skin. That's the impression. I mean there there does appear to be possible protrusions, but bones, but

they could be pieces of wood. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but that didn't start contrast to what Adda actually looks like. Um, And so as as we in this room, I think can all agree that Atta is ada Autumn I'm sorry, is not a shrunken something because it's mostly bones and internal organs. There's not skin and a thin coating yeah the other yeah, which I don't really know what is holding it together. It's skin. Weird, it's a very very thin,

leathery layer of skin. I suppose that. I mean that the stuff at tendants are probably still present right on the skeleton. Yeah, it kind of just looks like bone, but it is what was a fleshy membrane at one time surrounding everything and what is dry and desiccated now that's what's holding it together, right, Yeah, so the cat gut almost like what cat gut? You know, the stuff that you can sew with. Haven't you heard a cat gut? That's what they used to use for surgery, to sit

to stitch people up. I'm not making this up. You know what, Joe, do you remember what cat gut is made from cat guts? It's made from it's intestines of animals like owls or cheese and well, but it's it's very tough and it's very stringing. But you used it to close wounds. Well, they originally did. They haven't been doing that for a while people. Yeah, I know that

the majewelry and stuff out of it. You yeah, no, it's it's very tough stuff, but it's that's why it reminds me of cat gut, because it's very, very tough. But it's an organic material. Okay, that's fair. I guess creep factor seventeen for Devon, thank you? Yeah, okay, so, but I think we can all agree it's not at a scut bones. Yeah, actually it's mostly bones, so it's

not a drunken body, but still kind of interesting. Nonetheless, Okay, uh next up is human comma premature, prematurely worn baby, prematurely worn baby, normal human normal, totally normal human baby, which all you have to do is really look at the skeleton to know it's not a totally normal baby.

Even is not going to be six inches long. Yeah, it has to be really premature, but you can look at Actually, this is one of the most interesting comparisons I saw was there was a scan uh fetus at two months old, and they're about six inches long or so, and then compared to the scan of the ata skeleton at a at a boy, and they look they look totally different. So, I mean, there's the thing. I mean, part of it is you know, ribs, part of it is head shaped, part of it is just typical bones.

So the thing is is that I've the research that I've seen said that this was if it was a human fetus, it was twelve or sixteen weeks, which is the first trimester, the end of the first trimester, beginning of the second trimester, and the typical fetus at that time. There's always this thing on the internet what sizes my baby, and it's about the size of an apple at that point. But a lot of things have formed. At that point,

all of the bones will have formed. The you know, the head is going to have formed though, And this is why I bring this up. The bones of your skull of ukranium, those are not are still not connected because your brain hasn't grown in yet and they've got to stay loose to allow that to happen. So if this is a premature child, that would explain why the head is misshapen, because they would have collapsed on each other and set into this kind of pointy shape instead

of what was around shape. If you follow that line of thinking. The other thing is like it's very very soft material. And the other thing that I will bring up is that you had you has been a good amount of time talking about the kneecaps. Okay, kneecaps are present at that time, but their cartilage, Like we said, cartilage is something that hardens when it's outside of the body.

It'll harden in the right environment. I mean, it's like if you find a mummy that's been in this desert, it's the nose will probably be there because it's mummified. But but but you know what your nose is cartilage And so what I looked at this as is that what was the infant placeholder cartilage kneecaps is just the stuff that it hardened it, you know, it actually set in place, so it looks like bone. What about the tooth, the twoth, I can't explain, Okay, I don't know. I

don't know why the hell there's a tooth there. But I can explain the cranium being misshapen, and I can explain the knee caps, which is why why I still feel that this is very much premature birth. Yeah, well, well, which is why it would have such a ceremonial burial. I feel differently about it, but we'll talk about in a minute, because I know Joe wants to say somethings, say something yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess or whatever. Yeah.

I was reading the blog of this guy named Polo, this guardian who who works at the Grant Museum of Zoology and the University and University College London. He has a fairly lengthy posting on it with a lot of big, long, huge comment threats from a lot of scientific types. And I don't know if you read that one or not. Yeah, and so he says that it looks to him just pretty much exactly like uh an aborted fetus. He says he's seen other ones mommified ones in museums and collect

and various collections of fourteen to sixteen weeks. He estimates as far as at the shape of the skull, partly what you were what you were saying, might have something to do with it. He thinks it might. Also he thinks it was aborted, and he thinks that perhaps during the procedure the head was you know, sort of pulled out damage and put That might also explain the odd shape.

He also said that he's as far as some of the misreadings of the age or the thing, they found greater calcification in the bones and you would expect in a fetus, but he said that that's actually an artifact of the mommification process. He says he's seen it in other mummies when they tried to like he actually wrote

a paper on the whole thing. Yeah, I've seen something about the fact that when they try to x ray them and do all these certain scans, those young bones look like they should be much older just because of the process that's involved in the scan. Yeah, exactly. And you can't read into that too heavily yeah, so as far as it being like sixty eight years ago old or a year old or anything. And also he said he looked at the the cat scans and everything. He

says he's evidence of teeth whatsoever. He says that there's a piece of exposed mandible that looks like a tooth, looks especially like a tooth. But he said that a good I haven't seen these cat scans and he's he's talking about but that he says, and he sounds like he's pretty objective and pretty smart, pretty knowledgeable guy. He says there's no teeth, so he's he's on board with the it's just a premature premature or more likely an

aboarded fetus. Yeah. Yeah, Well, and there's a lot of social conditions in that country that would explain potentially why that would happen, you know, because like unwed sex is not okay, an abortion it's kind of hard to get right. So you know, if you're with somebody and something happens,

you've got to take care of it. Yeah, I um, you know what, this is one of the sad things that has been It would be nice to find the quote unquote token collector or wherever that goes and find find out precisely what grave, because if it was found in the graveyard, I'd like to know what grave you founded in because that would be kind of interesting because imagine somebody going back to this village where they have family buried and and sort of like, you know, digging

up a few witches of dirt and burying it there. You know, we kind of you might be able to actually find out who the mother of you know, the Atacama skeleton is. Yeah, that's a premature birth, I think. Walk through that thing, yeah, and so wanted Yeah. Uh. And then the last kind of theory here is that that it was a human being that was born likely but with a genetic disorder and that just grew to

six inches tall. Yeah, or you know, didn't really survive out of the womb for two terribly long But obviously there aren't an extended period of time though. Yeah, and so there obviously aren't any genetic disorders that we know of that cause a actual human being to only grow to six inches tall. That's not a thing. You wouldn't live very long, you would not. It's going to step

on you. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, on top of that shortest recorded person in history was only what two ft tall something like that's still like like three or four times as tall as them than this skeleton, thank you wrong, But yeah, it is kind of um this this. Yeah, but added to that, you know, they did this genetic testing on the skeleton and there they couldn't find any markers for common things like dwarfism or anything like that. Yeah. Well, plus this would be a real one off disorder, because

there is such a thing as dwarfism. There is. But how many how many six install human beings have we produced so far? None? None? Yeah, yeah, that we know of. That's true. Maybe they're hiding. They might be hiding right here. Yeah, they're so little, you don't know. Yeah, that's why you keep hearing those weird banging noises in your pipes. Um. But there is a theory out there that it's kind

of a duel. It's a dual theory. I guess. Uh. It's a combination of genetic disorder and a premature birth or aborted birth situation because a lot of their well, a lot of women who are pregnant with babies who have progeria often have miscarriages with these babies and Progeria is something that I guess I knew about because I listened to uh Diet and Aunt. Would you guys know them? It's okay, I wouldn't expect you to. It's like a ow, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Anyways, there's a there was a

guy by the name of Leon Botha who collaborated with them. Um, he was a DJ. They're a group or a group yeah, out of South Africa. They do rap mostly kind of it's hard to explain performance art. It's awesome. So I know who's got well Leon Botha did. He died a few years ago. He was twenty six when he died, which is actually a very long lifespan for somebody with perugia. Usually they progeria, I'm sorry, they don't usually live often people who have this live thirteen fourteen years the most.

Because it's it's rapid aging. Well it's not actually rapid aging. It signs it appeared to look like rapid age. It causes you to look like you are rapidly aging. Yeah. It's a founding about one in every eight million live births, but the instances are higher, but I didn't write down

the number. I'm sorry of stillborn or premature births. The defining features of somebody with this disorder are I'm just gonna quote here, limited growth, full body alopecia, alopecia, so hair loss, and a distinctive appearance that includes a small face with a shallow, shallow, recessed jaw, and a very pinched nose. And often their face looks small on their head in proportion to the head. Yeah. Um, and the

heads are you know, often kind of more elongated. So, I mean, I think it's it's a fair theory to say that it's possible that Otta had this disorder in utero and was born prematurely that it accounts for the way that he looks with this skull. I mean, as does your theory of you know, kind of aborted fetus situation. Their skulls look oversized. They look oversized, but they don't usually look pointy like that, but they do often in

um fetuses with progeria. I'm sorry, I don't know why I can't say that word, but you know, again, it's it's hard to tell. And then scientists are also saying that they also haven't found any of the genetic markers for um progeria, so it's probably not, So I don't know. I don't have a good answer. Really. I think it's probably a human um. I think it's probably a premature what whichever way it happened, If it happened that there was some genetic disorder that caused the fetus to look

this way, if it was just a premature birth. It's also hard to tell because it is a mummy and it looks at it looks much too thin to be a normal fetus, but to me, but again, it's a mommy, so it's hard to tell. It's it's a mummy. As as it as it dries out, the skin streaks streaks up, and it draws the rib tip exactly, and that's that's part of it. Yeah, if you look at those ribs,

they almost looked like they should have broken from the pressure. Yeah. Yeah, although you know, still the question is is there should be more ribs than there are? But well, apparently that the two missing ribs are the lower floating ribs, which you know, form the last it's entirely possible. They would have to have been really early though well, I mean they because fully formed, and so they may not have you know, when when everything dried out and pulled in.

They may not have been enough substance to them. They may have been mostly fleshy instead of bony. You can, I mean the in the X rays of it two month old fetus. There they are ribs. They are alls, all twelve, all twelve of them. Yeah, but it's possible. I mean, it's possible that it was a younger fetus. It's possible that there was some birth effect that caused them to not have, you know, ribs. I don't know,

but you never know. We could if you go back to that area, you know, check up on the people. Maybe that maybe there's a whole subset of people that's good that have a genetic defect. You know. I've been passing it along. Floating rib. Yeah, yeah, I don't even know what is the purpose at the floating rib? Does anybody know? I think it's just one more rib to get broken. I think that's a I always figured it was the one that pinches when you get a pinch

in your side. This is always weird. I don't know either. It's maybe a little extra electra protection for those for your kidneys or something like that. I don't know. So, yeah, they go it's the outa comma skeleton or humanoid, probably not alien, probably not probably on alien. Probably just a very very sad story, a very small story. Yeah, tiny, but you know, actually digging around up there, you might

find a lot of these things. Yeah. It is a little weird, you know too, would be found in the desert, but I guess not really that weird. Yeah, because the conditions are such that you know they're gonna get naturally mummified. Yeah that's true. Yeah, luckily in the Comma desert there's probably so dry. I mean no, no four legged scavengers really exist out there to come along and eat it, you know, so it just lays their undisturbed and just

you know, becomes mumified. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, until the two two legged scavenger comes along and you guys have anything else? I don't story. Yeah, and that really we'll have to go down there and check it out one of these days soon as our listeners fund our trips. Yeah, yeah, thanks, guys.

Just kidding. I'm just kidding everyone, I'm just kidding. Uh. If you want to see some of our research, uh, if you want to leave a comment on this show, if you want to find merch or links to donate all of that information, as well as links to download the episode or on our website. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can find us on social media where on Facebook, We're on Twitter, We're on Reddit. We've got a subreddit. We're Thinking Sideways UM on Twitter.

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kicked in. We really appreciate it, seriously. Thanks. All of that having been said, I think that I'm just going to get out of here real quick. Yeah I get out here too. Yeah. Sweet bye guys,