It was not until about 200 years ago that mankind started producing metallic aluminum so a piece of aluminum that dates back as early as 250,000 years ago is being considered a sensational find.
The chunk of metal, also known as the object of Aiud, was discovered in Romania in the 1970s. The country was still under communist rule at the time so details of the find were not disclosed to the public during the period.
A group of builders who were working on the banks of the river Mures in the town of Aiud found three objects buried 33 feet under the sand. One of the objects appeared to have been man-made. It was thought to be the end of an axe.
The three objects were then sent for further analysis. Two of the objects were found to be large bones of the mastodon, a large but now extinct mammal that died between 10,000 to 80,000 years ago. The third object was found to be a very lightweight metal.
Lab tests conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland revealed that the fragment is made of 12 metals and is 90 percent aluminum. Romanian officials also estimated it to be about 250,000 years old.
Experts who conducted further tests said that the age of the object could range between 400 and 80,000 years old. Even at 400 years though, the object would still have been produced 200 years earlier than when humans first produced aluminum.
Given its age and composition, the object, which measures 7.8 inches long, 4.9 inches wide and 2.8 inches thick, is now being hailed as proof that aliens visited Earth in ancient times with some proposing the idea it could even be part of a UFO.
Experts are baffled to find that the metal has concavities, which make it appear as if it was made as part of a complex mechanical system. Romanian Ufologists Association Deputy Director Gheorghe Cohal said that the substances that comprise the mysterious object cannot be combined using technology that are available on Earth.
Conspiracy theorists claim that aliens from extraterrestrial worlds do exist and some of these beings have in fact visited Earth. NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth person to walk on the surface of the moon, supports these claims. Last year, the space traveler said that aliens have saved Earth from a nuclear holocaust. UFO hunters have also claimed that an 800-year old "mobile phone" in Austria may have been left behind by aliens that visited Earth many years ago.
The ancient aluminum piece is now displayed in the History Museum of Cluj-Napoca.
