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| Photo image video QuantumNauta |
Autumn mists shrouded the Devonshire hills as, at dawn on October 27, 1898, Professor Nikolai Petrov gazed in amazement at the impossible object embedded in the rock before him. The eminent Russian physicist, already in London for a Royal Society conference, was joined by Austrian geologist Franz Mueller and London industrialist James Harrington. Communicating in French, the common tongue of European intellectuals of the time, the three men attempted to make sense of what was before them.
The object had the shape of an immense metallic EGG, at least six meters high, with a silvery surface interrupted by circular doors. The three scientists, initially convinced that they were facing an exceptional geological phenomenon, gradually had to abandon any conventional explanation.
The discovery had been made during work on a local aqueduct, when a landslide had revealed part of the structure. The authorities had isolated the area, declaring it a geological danger zone. The Earl of Devon, owner of the land, had made his gamekeepers available, discreetly supported by police officers of the Intelligence Service in civilian clothes.
Petrov looked at the object's lateral opening. Inside, mechanisms of extraordinary complexity could be seen. Mueller attempted to take samples of the external material, but even the best steel tools could not scratch it. Harrington, an expert in metallurgy, initially proposed plans for industrial exploitation, but the strange behavior of the object soon convinced him to abandon such ambitions.
Primitive magnetometers and precision thermometers were installed around the object. Harrington brought a camera to document the phenomenon, but the plates were inexplicably overexposed, showing only a vague ovoid shape surrounded by a halo of light.
On the morning of the third day, a faint hum emerged from within the structure, and the small portholes began to glow with an amber light. The three men recoiled in terror, then approached again with cautious reverence. The phenomenon faded after a few moments.
"It can't be human work," Mueller whispered,Petrov's notes, later seized by the Okhrana and buried in the Tsarist archives until 1967, described how the metal appeared to alternate between solid and fluid states, defying every known law of physics.
On the evening of the seventh day, a thunderstorm struck the region. Lightning struck the hill repeatedly. The three men, sheltered in a nearby tent, saw the metal egg glowing with increasing light. The opening in the side sealed completely and the object began to vibrate, producing a sound similar to a musical note that seemed to penetrate the rock itself.
By dawn, they found that the object had gradually dematerialized, leaving only a perfect semicircular cut in the rock face. Authorities classified the incident as an "unidentified geological phenomenon."
Mueller died six months later from causes that were never clarified. Harrington gave up business to devote himself to astronomy. Petrov returned to St. Petersburg where he developed surprising improvements to existing technologies, such as dynamos. electric cars of inexplicable efficiency for the time, before disappearing during an expedition to Siberia in 1905.
In the years that followed, similar rare semi-circular geological formations were observed in remote locations, which were the subject of debate in the scientific community. A young geologist who connected these phenomena to the Devonshire affair was quickly transferred to administrative duties.
Nothing more was heard of the metal egg. (QuantumNauta Source)
