Strange rock found near Roswell. Made by Aliens?

A strange rock with unusual magnetic properties - deeply scored, with what appears to be moon phases, a solar eclipse and the depiction of a supernova -- has been unearthed on the outskirts of Roswell. Its discovery has startled researchers, scientists and all who have examined it.

If proven to be of extraterrestrial origin, it will mark the second time in less than a century that the Roswell area has received communications from outer space.

Roswell Mayor Sam D. LaGrone, who actually saw and touched the rock over the weekend, said, "It is a very strange looking rock.... I touched it, I felt it, and I just don't see how it could have been produced."

The rock, he said, adds another element to "the strangeness of Roswell," 61 years after the purported 1947 UFO crash and alleged cover-up by military authorities.

The deep wine-red colored rock, measuring less than two inches across, and weighing about 40 grams, was unearthed in September 2004 by Roswell businessman Robert Ridge, 50 , who said he found it while deer hunting in Cedar Hill, 17 miles "as the crow flies" from the 1947 purported UFO crash site.

"I saw some fresh tracks and followed them," he said. "That's when I noticed the partially exposed rock on the side of a sand pit. But I didn't pick it up at first because I thought there were deer up ahead, and didn't want to break off the pursuit."

When he realized the tracks were just goat tracks, he headed back the way he came, picked up the rock, and put it in his pocket, he said.

After showing the rock to family and friends, he decided to keep it in a safe deposit box until last year, when curiosity to discover the truth about it got the better of him.

"In July 2007, I was introduced to UFO investigators Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer, and they were astounded at what they saw," he said.

Zulkowski said the investigators where so impressed, they presented the rock to a number of experts, including prominent New Mexico anthropologists, "all of whom claimed they had never seen anything like it."

"They said there is no way this rock could have been scored or drilled in the way it was, without sophisticated modern equipment, like lasers and high speed water-fed grinders and drills," Zukowski said. The artifact's image appears to be literally "pulled" from the surface of the red iron ore rock. Apart from its strange appearance, Zukowski said, the rock has "peculiar" magnetic properties.

"It retains its magnetic polarity by which it will spin a compass needle and register its magnetic field on meters," he said. The oval rock will also spin, depending on the position of a magnet over the image surface, he added. - rdr