MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries - Ep. 86 | Out of This World/A Good Scrub Down

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

“Out of This World”: In 2003, a treasure hunter in Chile makes a shocking discovery: a tiny, 6-inch skeleton of what appears to be a human. But parts of its anatomy just don’t make sense. It’s too well-formed to be a fetal skeleton, and its skull is strangely elongated – making some people wonder, is this a medical mystery… or an extraterrestrial one? “A Good Scrub Down”:After thoroughly cleaning his apartment, a young man is ready to enjoy his weekend. A few hours later, his eye starts to itch unbearably. Is it an allergy? An irritant? A bacteria? Or something even more sinister?Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow MrBallen's Medical Mysteries on Amazon Music, the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes publish for free every Tuesday. Prime members can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Or, you can listen episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Start your free trial in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or by visiting https://wondery.com/links/mrballens-medical-mysteries/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to new episodes of Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. This show is all about the strange and surprising things that can happen to the human body, so you always expect the unexpected. But in today's episode, the subjects of our two stories are truly bizarre. In our first story, a treasure hunter in the Chilean desert finds an ancient artifact that is so strange and so otherworldly, it takes an entire medical team just to determine what

it is and where it came from. And in our second story, a man's eye becomes infected with what almost seems like alien tendrils. Honey, what are you doing? You wanted me to improve my guns for the summer? You know, sun's out, guns out. Great arms, babe, but that's not what I meant. Before you head into the mountains or the range, stop by SiWash Sports.

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Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery+. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr. Ballin and this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. So if you like today's story please sneak into the follow buttons house and flip all their batteries around inside of their TV remotes. And now here's our first story called Out of This World. On a blazing hot summer day in 2003, a man named Carlos Ocampo took a long drink from

his water bottle. He had spent the last four hours digging for treasure in the Atacama desert region of northern Chile. He was searching around an abandoned church in a ghost town called La Nuria. He was looking for artifacts left behind by the mine workers of the last century. Collectors paid good money for the tools, the clothes, and the other items that were abandoned here as much as a hundred years ago. Carlos was completely alone. Nothing moved except the lizards and small rodents that scurried for shade behind the rocks and piles of rubble.

Between the hot wind, the silence, and the lonely rocky landscape, Carlos might as well have been walking on the surface of another planet. Carlos took a final drink from his canteen inside. He was out of water, and he knew it was time to call it a day. But as he turned over one last pile of dirt with a shovel, he spotted a piece of leather in the rubble. He dug it up and realized it was some kind of small pouch. When he dusted it off and reached inside of it, he pulled out this bundle of old yellowed

linen. And when he unfurled the linen, he found what looked like a doll inside of the cloth. But as he looked closer, he realized it was no doll. It was this tiny human-shaped skeleton, all brown and dried out. It was completely intact, and looked like at one point it had been alive, but it was only about six inches long from top to toe, the length of the pen Carlos had in his pocket. As he carefully turned the skeleton over in his hands, he could see a well-defined rib cage, two arms and two legs, all held together by a complete spinal column.

But it was the oversized head on the top of the body that really made Carlos feel uncomfortable. It had two giant eye sockets that were much larger than he had ever seen on the head of a human baby. This creature also had an enormous forehead while its chin came to a point, giving the head an oddly triangular shape. Carlos wondered if what he was holding was even human. Usually he didn't believe in extraterrestrials, but he couldn't help but notice that the skeleton's giant head and gaping eye sockets looked a lot like the typical depiction of a space alien.

Carlos wrapped the tiny skeleton back up and carefully placed it inside of his backpack. And then he smiled. Because whatever the skeleton was, he was sure it would fetch a whole lot of money. In 2012, nine years after Carlos made the discovery in Chile, an immunologist named Dr. Grant Nash sat at a bar in Palo Alto, California with his friend and fellow doctor Steven Simpson. Dr. Nash finished his beer while Dr. Simpson scrolled through his phone, looking for a very specific picture.

The two doctors liked to meet up for darts and a couple of beers on the weekends. Dr. Simpson was a bit of a space exploration geek, and he liked to update Dr. Nash on the latest NASA missions. But tonight, he wanted to talk about something else. According to Dr. Simpson, there were rumors going around that someone had discovered a fully intact alien skeleton. Dr. Nash was skeptical, but after a moment, Dr. Simpson had found the photo he was looking for.

And when Dr. Nash saw the image of a tiny humanoid skeleton with bizarre proportions, his jaw dropped. The bar they were in had gotten crowded and noisy, and so the two of them moved to a quiet corner where Dr. Nash could examine the image more closely. He quizzed his friend on the full story of the skeleton. Dr. Simpson told him that researchers were now calling the skeleton Atta, short for the Atacama region in Chile where it was found. This skeleton was so unusual that a collector in Spain had bought the specimen at first sight. Dr. Simpson said that as far as he knew, no genetic experts had been consulted to determine

where the skeleton had come from. So with no hard evidence, speculation was now running wild. Was this a newly discovered species of ancient human? Or possibly, could Ata be an alien being from another galaxy? One prominent UFO expert certainly thought so. He was so intrigued with Atta that he was making a documentary about the skeleton. His name was Dr. Steven Greer, an ER physician turned ufologist, which is someone who studies UFOs and all things extraterrestrial.

Due to the skeleton's small size and peculiar shaped head, Dr. Greer seemed absolutely certain that Atta was the skeleton of an alien life form. And Dr. Nash couldn't blame him. The skeleton was so well formed, it seemed like it had to have belonged to a being who had lived at least a few years. But it was so tiny, only six inches long. No human that small could ever survive outside the womb. On top of that, there were other indications that Atta could be an extraterrestrial, from

its elongated head to the fact that Atta had fewer ribs than a normal human. Dr. Nash wasn't ready to fully buy into the idea that Atta was an alien yet, but he did feel like there were legitimate questions that needed answers. So the next day, Dr. Nash did a little internet sleuthing and emailed the producers of the documentary. Although he worked as an immunologist, Dr. Nash had a PhD in genetics. He offered his expertise in that field to help determine where Ata came from. And after some discussion, the producers of the documentary and the skeleton's owner agreed to let Dr. Nash try. Several weeks later, Dr. Nash waded inside of a crowded conference room right down the

hall from his lab at Stanford University. The room was packed with scientists, reporters, and cameras, all there to hear the results of Dr. Nash's DNA testing of Atta's skeleton. After signing multiple confidentiality agreements with the private collector, Dr. Nash and his team had received bone marrow samples from Atta's ribs and also right upper arm bone. Once all the legal formalities were completed, the actual testing only took a few weeks, but then they kept the results quiet until now, the big reveal. The usually quiet halls of the research lab buzzed like a school cafeteria as they waited

for Dr. Nash to begin. But he was waiting for his friend, Dr. Simpson. Dr. Nash wasn't about to let his friend miss out on the big test results. Finally, Dr. Simpson came through the door and Dr. Nash walked to the podium to give his report. He told the room he had tested Atta's DNA against multiple strains of known DNA, human and animal. He revealed that he even used the DNA from his own blood as part of the control sample.

He said that there were still many questions about Atta that DNA alone could not answer. But the DNA sample he analyzed had settled the biggest question on everyone's minds, and unfortunately it was not the results everybody was hoping for. According to the data, Atta was not a space alien. She was a little human girl with DNA from both native indigenous Chilean people as well as Europeans. That meant she had to have been born sometime after 1500, when Europeans colonized what is now South America and began reproducing with local people.

Dr. Nash could feel the disappointment in the room now that he had ruled out the possibility of alien life. But he reminded everyone that there were still so many things to learn about Atta, such as why was her head so elongated and strange? Was it really possible for a human that small to survive outside the womb? And if her skeleton was so complete, well, why was she missing ribs? As everyone's murmurs of disappointment turned into a spirited discussion, Dr. Nash swore he was not going to stop digging until he figured out everything there was to learn

about Atta. But to find those answers, he knew he would need to bring in some more experts. A few weeks later, Dr. Nash sat with his colleague, Dr. Ben Hoffman, watching an image of Atta's tiny skeleton rotate on a computer screen. Dr. Hoffman was an expert in hereditary bone diseases, and Dr. Nash had asked him to take a look at Atta, but his findings only led to more questions than answers. What Dr. Hoffman was telling him just didn't make any sense.

According to him, Atta's bones showed signs of development that were typical of a six-year-old human. Dr. Nash was baffled. He thought Atta might have somehow survived for maybe a short period after her birth, but how could this tiny being, no longer than a dollar bill, have lived for six entire years? Dr. Hoffman had to admit that he wasn't sure. He explained that there were genetic diseases that caused overdevelopment of bones, a kind of premature aging if you will, that could have made Atta seem older than she actually was when she died.

Those were the anomalies he was looking for in Atta's case. However, so far, the testing had come up empty for any of those diseases. The more they discovered about Atta, the harder it was to know what happened to her. And he didn't have any answers about the strange shape of Atta's head either. Dr. Nash realized that to learn the entire truth about Atta, he would have to go even deeper into her genes. After he finished consulting with Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Nash next convinced a renowned geneticist to undertake the tedious process of examining Atta's entire genome, which is composed of millions of tiny snippets of genetic material. This review would provide far more details about her ancestry, but it is an exceedingly

slow process to do this. It would take another five more years for Ada's secrets to be revealed. Researchers discovered a staggering three million small mutations in Ada's genome when compared to an ordinary person. And at least 64 of these mutations were astonishingly rare and could have very easily combined to create Ada's strange appearance. And so, armed with this extensive genetic profile, Dr. Nash was finally ready to reveal Ada's story to the world.

Ada, it was clear, had suffered extensive birth defects. The researchers found seven specific genetic mutations that combined to give her the pointy head, wide slanted eyes, and pointed chin. She also had a serious birth defect that damaged her diaphragm, the muscle beneath the lungs that plays a crucial role in breathing. The researchers couldn't say why Ada's skeleton looked like that of a six-year-old, but they agreed it is highly unlikely she actually lived nearly that long. Dr. Nash speculated that a genetic disease could have caused her skeleton to develop

abnormally quickly while she was in the womb. He said that Ada had likely died in the womb before being delivered, which is why her skeleton was so small. Nash concluded that even if Atta lived long enough to be born alive, her lack of a proper diaphragm would have kept her from being able to eat or breathe well enough to survive. But that wasn't the only bombshell about Atta. Despite the fact that Atta looked like she had been mummified, tests showed that she was not centuries old.

In fact, Atta had been born in the 1970s, less than 40 years before her skeleton was actually discovered. In other words, far from being an ancient space alien, Atta was a modern human child who had the misfortune of suffering fatal birth defects. Within days of Dr. Nash's research being published, the Chilean government came out and condemned the ethics around how the study was conducted. Although they didn't dispute Dr. Nash's findings, the Chilean government was not happy about how Atta's remains had been exhumed and taken out of the country for analysis. And not everyone accepted the American scientists' findings.

A separate group from New Zealand conducted their own 2018 study that found no signs of major birth defects. They concluded that Atta was basically normal and her skeleton was at the same developmental stage as a 15-week fetus. They concluded that her head could have become disfigured during a premature birth. And yes, there are still people out there who believe Atta is an alien. As proof, they point to the initial tests that showed only 92% of Atta's DNA matched a human's. However, later tests challenged that claim. Most of the DNA that didn't seem human had simply been degraded from Atta's decades

of lying out in the desert. Dr. Nash and his colleagues stood by their findings, but they agreed with their critics on one point. They agreed that Atta should be returned to her homeland so she could be properly buried. Sadly though, it does not seem like their calls have yet been heeded. As of 2018, Atta's skeleton still remains somewhere in Spain in the possession of the collector who bought her. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him.

And the suspect... He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. ...became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoking the people to a true issue. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts.

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put on his favorite record and filled his electric tea kettle. He'd had a long, tiring week at work and he was ready to enjoy a nice, relaxed morning before meeting some friends for lunch. While he waited for the water to boil, he walked over to the terrarium in his kitchen to check on his pet tarantula. Nick knew the hairy spider was an unusual pet, but he'd always loved tarantulas. He spent the next few minutes watching the spider dig a burrow and line it with silk in a corner of the terrarium, and that's about the time when he noticed some grime on the inside of the glass

and knew the tank was due for a cleaning. In fact, as he looked around his own place, he realized he should probably spend the morning cleaning up, instead of spending it on the couch. Once his tea was ready, Nick took a sip and then began on the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. An hour later, he'd wiped down countertops, cleaned out the fridge, put away the dishes, and scrubbed down his tarantula's terrarium. The kitchen was looking good, but Nick's right eye felt weird. It was stinging. Nick went to the bathroom to get a better look in the mirror.

His right eye was swollen and bloodshot. He wondered if at some point during his cleaning spree, he'd accidentally rubbed his face with a cleaning product, because his right eye was really hurting now. He turned on the faucet to scoop some water into his eye, which seemed to help a little, but the eye was still so sore. So he just went to lie down for a while, figuring that whatever was bothering him would probably clear up with some rest. A few days later, Nick sat on a doctor's examination table with his right eye clenched

shut. The eye was still watery and red and now it was sensitive to light. Even the overhead lights in his doctor's office felt too bright. The doctor told Nick to open up his right eye. Then he tried to inspect it with a pen light. But Nick flinched as soon as the doctor shown the light into his pupil. He apologized to the doctor and tried his best to force his eye open, but it was itchy and stinging and he just couldn't do it.

And so in order to keep his eye open, the doctor had to use a device called a speculum that helped push Nick's eyelids away from his eye. Nick gritted his teeth as his doctor aimed the pen light over the surface of his eye. It burned so badly that Nick could feel his tear duct welling up and water streaming down his face. The doctor finally, mercifully, clicked off his pen light and Nick closed his right eye again, feeling instant relief. The doctor said there was some good news. Nick was actually suffering from a common condition, conjunctivitis, or pink eye. Pink eye occurs when the thin, clear membrane that covers the eye and the inside of the eyelid gets inflamed. It can be caused by bacteria or a virus, or even an allergic reaction. Either way,

it explained why Nick's eye was bright pink and irritated. The doctor told him that pretty soon, his eye would actually start discharging yellow or greenish pus, but that was normal. It sounded gross to Nick, but he was relieved it was nothing more serious. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic cream for him to use around his eye. He warned Nick that he would be contagious for a few days and so should just stay home at least until the redness cleared up. But he'd be fine soon enough and could go back to his normal routine.

Three weeks later, an ophthalmologist or eye doctor, Dr. John Camden, stepped into an exam room to meet his new patient, a young man named Nick. Nick was sitting hunched in his chair, his right eye still red and watery. He was clearly in severe discomfort. Nick said that his right eye had been painfully inflamed for the better part of a month, ever since he cleaned his apartment one Saturday morning. He'd been using this antibiotic cream that his doctor had prescribed for pink eye, but it didn't help.

His eye was still swollen and still sensitive to light, and now his vision was getting blurry too. And occasionally these black specks would appear in his vision, and sometimes the specks would look almost gray, like translucent strings floating around. Dr. Camden promised he would figure out what was going on. First, he tested Nick's visual acuity,

which is the eye's ability to see fine details, and he found that the vision in Nick's right eye was significantly worse than his left, which made sense because that was the eye that was inflamed. But Dr. Camden wanted a closer look. He placed eyedrops in Nick's eyes to dilate his pupils, then had Nick sit down in front of a specialized microscope that let Dr. Camden see a magnified version of Nick's eye, both inside and out. He had Nick place his head against a chin rest and forehead support and then shone a bright light directly into Nick's eye. He knew the light was

bothering Nick, so he did his best to move quickly as he focused the microscope. Dr. Camden examined the front of Nick's eyes, and right away he noticed something interesting about his right eye. The blood vessels were inflamed with scattered white spots all around the eye. Those symptoms were consistent with a viral infection called keratoconjunctivitis, an extreme form of pink eye, and that could be a big problem for Nick. The virus that causes keratoconjunctivitis could permanently damage Nick's eye. It could also attack other parts of his body, including his respiratory tract, his gastrointestinal

system, even his kidneys and urinary tract. Dr. Camden felt like he'd seen enough to make a diagnosis. But just as he was about to turn off the microscope, something else caught his attention. He told Nick to hang on for just another few seconds. There was something strange in Nick's right eye. He refocused his instrument and then he saw what looked like a cluster of tiny spears sticking out of the surface of Nick's eyeball. He zoomed in even closer and realized these little spears looked like hair.

Dr. Camden was shocked. He realized that very likely the cause behind all this discomfort were these hairs. On one hand, that was good news. It meant Nick very likely did not have a virus. But that also left Dr. Camden with two questions. Where did these hairs come from and how much damage had they caused? He knew he would need to have a closer look. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast Against the Odds. In each episode,

we take you to the edge of some of the most incredible adventure and survival stories in history. In our next season, it's 1980, and in the Pacific Northwest, the long dormant volcano Mount St. Helens is showing signs of life. Scientists warn that a big eruption is coming, but a restricted zone around the mountain is limited by politics. On May 18th, hikers, loggers, reporters, and researchers are caught in the blast zone as the volcano erupts. They find themselves pummeled by a deadly combination of scorching heat, smothering ash, and massive mudslides.

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he put his face back onto the chin rest, and Dr. Camden turned on the lamp. As he focused the microscope on Nick's retina, he noticed two things. First, some of these tiny hairs had clearly penetrated deep into Nick's eye, passing through the cornea that protects the eyeball's surface and nearly reaching his retina. The hairs were embedded so far back that Dr. Camden wasn't sure he could even remove them. Second, Nick's retina itself was irritated and inflamed, a condition called retinitis.

If left untreated, retinitis could cause Nick to lose vision in that eye. Dr. Camden knew that if he wanted to save Nick's vision, he needed to get those tiny hairs out of his eye as soon as possible. And so he told Nick that he needed to figure out what they were and where they came from. He asked Nick if he had any ideas.

Nick thought for a moment, and then suddenly this look of realization dawned on his face. And then he went into detail about his cleaning spree the previous month around the time his eye first got irritated. He told the doctor that during this cleaning spree, he had noticed there was this stain on the inside of the glass terrarium that housed his pet tarantula. And while he had his hand in there cleaning the stain, his pet tarantula came running out and fired a mist of tiny hairs that hit Nick in his eyes and face. His breed of tarantula was one of many that shot these fine barbed hairs at any perceived

threat as a self-defense mechanism. At the time, Nick said he didn't think much of it because he'd had tarantulas before and he'd seen them do this and it never was a big deal and he didn't feel anything. After hearing Nick's story, Dr. Camden diagnosed him with Ophthalmia Nidosa, a condition where the eye is damaged by insect or vegetable materials. And then he told Nick they would try their best to surgically remove the hairs. Unfortunately though, the hairs were too small for even Dr. Camden's micro-forecepts to grab.

So, he wound up prescribing steroid drops to help coax the hairs out of Nick's eye. The eye drops helped somewhat, but many of the hairs never dislodged. To this day, Nick lives with tarantula hairs buried in his right eye. They cause him mild discomfort and occasionally create floaters in his field of vision, which can appear as white spots or even sometimes cobwebs. They serve as a permanent reminder for Nick to wear safety goggles whenever he cleans his pet tarantula's tank. or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or by listening on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.

From Ballin Studios and Wondry, this is Mr. Ballen's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballen. A quick note about our stories. They are all inspired by true events, but we do sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and also some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. And a reminder, the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This episode was written by Allison Taylor and Aaron Lann. Our editor is Heather Dundas. Sound design is by Matthew

Cilelli. Our senior managing producer is Callum Plews. And our coordinating producer is Sarah Mathis. Our senior producer is Alex Benedon. Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vytak and Tasia Palacanda. Fact checking was done by Sheila Patterson. For Ballen Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt. Script editing by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our coordinating producer is Samantha Collins. Production support by Avery Siegel.

Executive producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondry, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Senior producers are Laura Donna Pallivota and Dave Schilling. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lor. And our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis. In the first half of the 20th century, one woman changed adoption in America. What was once associated with the shame of unmarried mothers became not only acceptable but fashionable. But Georgia Tann didn't help families find new homes out of the goodness of her heart. She was stealing babies from happy families and selling them for profit. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show

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