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4 om ee ANCIENT IRON PYRAMID STRUCTURE FOUND IN CHINA are no residents, let alone modern indus- try—just a few migrant herdsmen to the north of the mountains." "Unless you see [the relics] with your own eyes, you just wouldn't believe it," says Lanzhou Morning News journalist Ye Zhou, who was one of the first journalists on the scene. "It's hard to stick to scientific language when you talk about what's there. There are just all these iron pipes every- where...it felt very creepy." The site was first reported in 1998 by a group of US scientists on the trail of dinosaur fossils. The team alerted the local Delingha government to the presence of the structures, but the story went largely ignored until June 2002 when a Henan newspaper reported the findings of the site. From their base in neighbouring Lanzhou, Ye and his colleagues decided to pick up the story and investigate for them- selves, filing six reports detailing the expe- dition and their ongoing findings. According to the Xinhua News Agency, results of preliminary rock and metal analysis show the pipes are 30% ferric oxide, with high content of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide; 8% of the sample's make-up was categorised "unidentifiable". Engineer Liu Shaolin from Xitieshan Smelting Plant, who carried out the analy- sis, says the levels of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide point to the pipes having been on the mountainside for a long time— although his estimate was significantly more recent than the US scientists’ original theory that the iron was 300,000 years old. Liu found it was 5,000 years old: impres- sive, considering modern human smelting methods date back a mere 2,000 years. "The results have made the site even more mysterious," says Qin. Then again, counters Lanzhou journalist Ye, he would say that. "The Delingha gov- ernment is billing it as tourist attraction," he says. "There's already a road sign point- ing the way to the ET relics, and they've got it in their investment and tourism guides." Preliminary reports completed, researchers from the Beijing UFO Research Organisation are now planning a more thorough expedition, due to depart in late July. Qinghai project director Wei Yuguang, recently returned from the site, describes what he found as a wasteland. "The area is totally deserted," he says. "There is no liv- ing creature within 500 miles, although beyond that invisible boundary there is rich wildlife. There is no transportation, and the road is very difficult to follow: a car carrying Xinhua journalists ended up stuck in a ditch." (Source: City Weekend, China, July 18, 2002, http://www.cityweekend.com.cn) n the south bank of a saltwater lake O« a metallic pyramid, said to be between 50 and 60 metres tall. In front of the structure lie three caves, each with triangular openings. The two smaller caves have collapsed, but the largest central cave is still passable. Inside, on the ground, lies a 40-centimetre length of pipe, spliced in half. Another red-brown pipe is sunk into the earth, only its tip visible above the ground. Outside the cave, half-pipes, pieces of metal and strangely shaped stones are scat- tered along the southern bank of the lake. Some pipes run into the water. It is unknown what may lurk in the salty depths. Should this site have been discovered on the outskirts of any of China's urban areas, the story would be about the perils of industrial pollution and its impact on the fragile environment. But this is at the foot of a mountain named Baigong Shan, in a remote corner of Qinghai province, 40 kilo- metres from the nearest city. Could this— as frenzied speculation in China's press would have it—be the remains of an alien launch pad rumoured to be between 30,000 and 20 million years old? "The environment is harsh here," says Qin Jianwen, head of the local Delingha government publicity department. "There NEXUS = 61 DECEMBER 2002 — JANUARY 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com