Known for its strange fauna, the Indonesian island of Flores may now have offered the world the strangest yet. The hobbit was an adult female no larger than a three-year-old child with a skull less than one-third the size of a modern human's.

NOVA presents exclusive coverage of new excavations that were undertaken in the summer of 2007 at the site of Ling Bua on the island of Flores, Indonesia. These are the first investigations of the cave site since the sensational discovery of tiny and bizarre human fossil bones at the site in 2004. No more than 3 feet tall when fully grown, these tiny humans survived in the cave for tens of thousands of years, hunting the huge and fierce Komodo dragons that roamed their remote island home. In Alien from Earth, NOVA explores the latest evidence in a furious scientific debate on what the Hobbit bones represent. Are they the remains of a dwarf race of modern humans suffering from a strange disease? Or are they the unique and tantalizing testament to a previously unknown branch of the human family?