Huffington Post, Lee Speigel, 04/23/2013
The mummified remains of what looks like a 6-inch space alien has turned "Sirius" into the most eagerly awaited documentary among UFO enthusiasts
The findings, however, might come as a disappointment.
In early
publicity, filmmakers claimed the documentary would reveal that the DNA of the creature with an oversized alien-looking head couldn't be medically classified.
In fact,
the film, which premiered Monday in Hollywood, features a scientist who
concluded the little humanoid was human.
"I can
say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human -- closer to
human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight. Obviously, it was
breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big
the thing might have been when it was born,"said Garry Nolan, director of
stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California.
"The
DNA tells the story and we have the computational techniques that allows us to
determine, in very short order, whether, in fact, this is human," Nolan,
who performed the DNA tests, explains in the film.
"Sirius"
focuses on the remains of the small humanoid, nicknamed Ata, that was
discovered in Chile's Atacama Desert 10 years ago and has, literally, gone
through different hands and ownership since then.
The film
also explores an ongoing grassroots movement to get the U.S. government to
reveal what it reportedly knows about UFOs, extraterrestrials and the
availability of advanced alternative energy technologies that could greatly
benefit everyone on Earth.
The primary
force behind "Sirius" is Steven Greer, a former emergency room doctor
who founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI)
and The Disclosure Project.
One odd
thing about the Ata controversy is how it came to the recent attention of the
American public.
Early in
the documentary, Greer refers to Ata as an extraterrestrial being, explaining
how it was found in the Atacama Desert and "we don't know how it came
about." That seems strange because HuffPost recently reported on the well
known history of little Ata since its discovery 10 years ago and subsequent
moving from hand to hand, ending up in Spain.
Early PR
for "Sirius" referred to the "paradigm shifting physical
evidence of a medically and scientifically analyzed DNA sequenced humanoid
creature of unknown classification." This fueled rumors, speculation and
more than likely, the hope many people had that, finally, a real alien creature
had been discovered and proven to have non-human DNA.
But now
that the film is available to everybody, and DNA analysis shows that Ata was
human, was that early PR hype about the humanoid a bit premature?
"My
interest, frankly, is to disprove that it's anything unusual or anything
paranormal," Nolan said prior to beginning his DNA study of the small
portions of Ata he was allowed to work with. "I would like to prove that
this is human [and] just an interesting mutation. In every situation with scientists,
your reputation's at stake. I have every expectation that even doing this is
going to lead to some ribbing from some of my colleagues."
One of the
leading theories going into the DNA testing was that Ata may have been an
unborn fetus. But, even that turned out to be incorrect, according to Nolan's
surprising (or not, depending on your point of view) conclusions of his
investigation.
"The
sequence that we got from the mitochondria [energy factories of cells] tells us
with extremely high confidence that the mother was an indigenous Indian from
the Chilean area. The other thing that immediately fell out of the analysis is
that it's male. It probably died in the last century, if I were to make a
guess."
Nolan
concedes he entered this study thinking that DNA was the answer, but then
realized there were other biology questions about Ata that still needed to be
understood and answered. He plans to eventually publish his findings after more
analysis.
Will the
public be disappointed or relieved that Ata has so far been classified as
human?
The rest of
"Sirius" -- from Emmy-winning director Amardeep Kaleka and narrated
by actor Thomas Jane -- includes numerous government and military witnesses
talking about their beliefs in extraterrestrial visitation to Earth as well as
their opinions on advanced alternative energy sources they feel should be made
public.
"There
have been attempts to bring this information out for over 60 years. Here we sit
with the world still burning oil and gas and coal, when we have had technology,
sciences and all the information we need to have had a completely new
civilization," says Greer, who will be one of many speakers at next week's
Citizen Hearing On Disclosure in Washington, D.C.
While
"Sirius" doesn't completely live up to the "alien entity"
hype that's been generated over the past few weeks, it does offer many points
of view from legitimate investigators trying to provide as much information to
the public about the UFO-ET subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment