The Coso Artifact is a spark plug found encased in a lump of hard clay or rock on February 13, 1961 by Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey, and Mike Mikesell while they were fossicking for geodes near the town of Olancha, California. Following its collection, Mikesell destroyed a diamond edged blade cutting through the rock containing the artifact and discovered the item.
Originally it was believed that the artifact must be very old, perhaps 500,000 years old, as claimed by Virginia Maxey, one of the people who discovered it. However, details of either dating technique or evidence on which this estimate were made was neither revealed nor published. Rather, this date was based solely on the opinion of an anonymous "geologist" as repeated second hand by one of the people, who discovered this artifact. Neither the identity, credentials, nor expertise of this "geologist", from which this opinion came is known. It is not even known if he or she was a real geologist or not. Now it is largely accepted that the material surrounding the sparkplug may have accreted in a matter of years or decades.
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[edit on 5-4-2007 by Marduk]
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