A controversial artifact found encased in a lump of hard clay or rock on February 13, 1961.
Found at Coso Mountains (six miles northeast of Olancha) by Wally Lane, Mike Mikesell, and Virginia Maxey (co-owners of the LM&V Rockhounds Gem and Gift Shop in Olancha, California), this fossil-encrusted geode which contained something that would later be shown to resemble a spark plug, is supposed to be some 500,000 years old.
Pierre Stromberg and Paul Heinrich, with the help of members of the Spark Plug Collectors of America, conducted an investigation in 1999 that suggested that the artifact is a 1920s Champion spark plug.
Pseudoscientific speculation for the artifact's origin include ancient advanced civilizations (such as Atlantis), prehistoric extraterrestrial visitors, and time-travelers from the future losing the artifact during a visit to the past.
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