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56 The Girl UFOlogists Called ‘Alien’

The Controversial Study anthropologist might have begun by engaging
local researchers to understand the context in Have you tuned in to
of a Girl Who UFOlogists which the girl died. They may have tried to Healing Within Radio?
locate surviving family. And the resulting study
Called ‘Alien’ could have told a story about La Noria and

people who lived there. Alan Goodman, a
by Sarah Zhang biological anthropologist at Hampshire College,
called it a “missed opportunity.”
By neglecting to engage anthropologists
and focusing only on the girl’s odd appearance,
Geneticists have not had this kind of reckoning.
Heaney suggests the geneticists may have
Though they almost certainly will have to face
played into the hands of the ufologists: “Part of
up to this issue as the study of ancient DNA
the game has been getting a larger and larger
becomes a more and more common tool in
platform.” Even debunking the alien connection
anthropology. Late on Wednesday night, as
requires repeating it and spreading the
outside pressure mounted, the University of
California at San Francisco sent The Atlantic a legitimately striking image of her body. Since
statement on behalf of Nolan and his coauthor, the study was widely covered in international
Atul Butte, at UCSF, denying the study authors media, Steven Greer, the ufologist who stars in
the Sirius documentary, has been tweeting about
did anything inappropriate. It reads:
how he believes the Stanford research is faulty.
We affirm the need to respect the
A spokesperson for him sent The Atlantic a
traditions of other cultures in genomic analyses.
report questioning the results, which she says
We have previously stated that we believe the
were written by a California Institute of
skeletal remains should be returned to the
Technology researcher who wants to remain
country of origin and, by finding them to be
human, this research supports the argument that anonymous.
these remains should be repatriated. This If anthropologists had been there to tell
research clarifies what has been a very public the story of what her life may have been like,
and what her parents’ lives may have been like,
and sensationalized story for a long time, and it
then perhaps the narrative would not have
was done out of a desire to bring some humanity
focused so much on whether or not she was
to this discussion and dignity to the skeleton.
alien. It would have made her humanity evident.
The skeleton has never been in the
This is the work Dorador is doing in the
possession of either Stanford or UCSF, and we
piece she wrote for Etilmercurio. She conjures
had nothing to do with removing the skeleton
from its place of origin. The DNA and images up the streets of La Noria, a service town that
come from remains that were not known to be sprung up during the heyday of nitrate mining in
human when the research began. It does not the Atacama desert. She writes about the heat,
the lack of water, the tuberculosis epidemics.
provide identifiable information about a living
She describes the cemeteries where families still
individual, as defined by federal regulations,
come to pay their respects.
and does not qualify as human-subjects Patti has teamed up with XZBN
There is not much known about the girl,
research, per the Federal Office of Human
so perhaps it bears repeating the few things that for a fresh new radio show,
Research Protections. It has long been known
have been reported. When she died, she was discussing health, live, trials and
that this skeleton was privately held in Spain,
without any allegations of criminal conduct as wrapped in cloth with a purple ribbon and buried triumphs, personal responsibility,
to how it was acquired. near a church—with intentionality. [] and everything in between!
The authors are also writing a response
that will be published in Genome Research.
View the full XZBN broadcast
The publicity from the DNA analysis may, schedule at
ultimately, provide the push to repatriate the
girl’s remains. But bioarchaeologists and
anthropologists said they would have done this www.XZBN.net!
study differently from the start. An