The Coso Artifact: A Spark Plug in Geode?
The Coso Artifact entered popular memory as a riddle: a porcelain-and-metal cylinder pried out of what its discoverers called a half-million-year-old geode in the high desert above Owens Lake. The riddle was solved decades ago. Yet the case remains a useful teaching specimen, because it shows how a single misnamed rock and one unsourced age […]
The Baigong Pipes: Natural or Manufactured?
What Are the Baigong Pipes? The Baigong Pipes are a cluster of rust-coloured tubular formations in the slopes and caves of Mount Baigong, about forty kilometres southwest of Delingha in the Qaidam Basin, Qinghai Province, China. Reported by the Chinese writer Bai Yu in 1996 and amplified by a Xinhua News Agency dispatch in June […]
The London Hammer: A Prehistoric Tool
What Is the London Hammer? The London Hammer is a small iron-headed hammer with a partly mineralized wooden handle, recovered as a loose surface find in 1936 near London, Texas, and later embedded in a chunk of calcareous concretion. It has become one of the most-cited cases in the modern out-of-place artifact (OOPArt) literature, championed […]
The Dorchester Pot: A Victorian Era OOPArt
What Is the Dorchester Pot? The Dorchester Pot is a small bell-shaped metallic vessel said to have been blasted out of Roxbury Puddingstone in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1852. Reported in Scientific American on June 5 of that year, it became one of the founding cases for the modern category of out-of-place artifacts […]
The Saqqara Bird: Ancient Egyptian Aircraft
What Is the Saqqara Bird? The Saqqara Bird is a small sycamore-wood object, roughly fourteen centimeters long, found in a tomb near Saqqara in 1898 and now held by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as accession number JE 33109. Egyptologists classify it as a Late Period bird figurine, likely a votive or weather vane. A […]
The Piri Reis Map: Advanced Ancient Cartography
The Piri Reis Map, created in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis, stands as a significant artifact in the study of ancient cartography. This ancient document provides valuable information on the geographical knowledge during the early 16th-century, shedding light on the maritime expertise of the era and the Age of Discovery. Unpacking […]
The Dropa Stones: Extraterrestrial Origins?
Explore the complex narrative surrounding the Dropa Stones, delving into the conflicting theories and evidence regarding their origin and the implications for our understanding of human history and extraterrestrial engagement. Historical Context In 1938, a curious discovery was made by Chi Pu Tei, a professor who led an archaeological expedition into the remote reaches of […]