A few year ago, in June 2002, a truly amazing object had come to light in the form of an uncommon stone imbedded with a screw-threaded metal bar inside. A Chinese collector from Lanzhou named Mr Zhilin Wang discovered this enigmatic object near to the Marzong Mountain region on the borders of the Gansu and Xijiang provinces, China.

The Lanzhou Stone drew enormous attention from many experts and collectors and is suspected of being from outer space.

The descriptive appearance of the Lanzhou Stone

The mysterious stone is pear shaped (measuring about 8cm × 6cm × 6cm), extremely hard and weighs 466 grams. Incredibly the rock is of a type that is totally unknown suggesting that it may, in fact, be a meteorite.

However, it is not only due to its unknown composition that the item had attracted enormous attention from many geologists and collectors around the world but also because of the startling artifact it contained within it ― a screw-threaded metal bar.

Moreover, the screw thread width remains consistent from the thick end to the thin end, instead of varying due to the growth of organisms.

As reported in the ‘Lanzhou Morning News’ on June 26, 2002:

“More than 10 geologists and global physicists from the National Land Resources Bureau of Gansu Province, Colored Metal Survey Bureau of Gansu Province, the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy, Lanzhou Branch, and the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou College gathered to study the origin of this mysterious stone.

After a discussion about its possibility of being man-made and the possible reasons for its formation, the scientists unanimously labeled the stone as one of the most valuable objects in China and in the world for collection, research and Archeological studies.”

The incredible hypotheses put forth in the conference of its scientific research and study

During the discussion, the scientists proposed many incredible hypotheses about the formation of this stone. One of the hypotheses says that this stone could be a relic from a prehistoric civilization, since a civilization equivalent to ours is thought to have existed on earth before our current one.

The Silurian hypothesis of the existence of prehistoric civilizations:

The Silurian Hypothesis is a thought-provoking work that evaluates the ability of modern science to detect evidence of an advanced civilization before, perhaps a few million or a few hundred million years ago. In a paper called the  Silurian Conjecture published in the Cambridge University Journal of Astrobiology, Adam Frank, astrophysicist at the  University of Rochester, and  Gavin Schmidt, director of  Goddard’s  Institute for Space Studies NASA, proposed an advanced civilization before humans appeared and thought “is it possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?” The term “Silurian Hypothesis” was inspired by a 1970s episode of  Doctor Who featuring  an intelligent reptilian race.

Another theory is that it could be a stony meteorite and it could have brought the information of an extraterrestrial civilization, as the screw-threaded metal bar is tightly enclosed in the black lithical material. Neither the bar’s entrance to the stone nor the exposed bar tip appear to be man-made.

At the end of the conference, all scientists agreed that further research is needed to address questions such as how the stone was formed and whether the “metal bar” is truly metal or not.

What skeptics say about the Lanzhou Stone?

While many scholars have been baffled by the the Lanzhou Stone’s unknown composition and its structural formation, many have remained skeptic about this strange looking object. According to them, the stone looks nothing more like a solidified ball of tar with a screw in it. The source of its creation maybe found from the world wars era. Therefore, there’s no need to subject this “rock” to real scientific scrutiny.

The Lanzhou Stone’s current whereabouts

The stone’s current location is unknown and analysis results have not been made public. But there are several interesting assumptions to be made. First of all, the metal rod was clearly fabricated and required a certain technological level to be manufactured. The unidentified black material could have been anything but the perspective of it being produced seems very likely.

Final words

What this stone and the threaded object is still remains what any bodies can guess at the moment. But if it is indeed a meteorite, then it has provided us with unquestionable evidential proof that we are not alone. While if the skeptics’ assumption is true then we’re wasting our time in an odd product of history.