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.
Check out the many faces of Ata the Humanoid
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.