Auuuuughhhhh!!

ArchaeoSETI

The Disaster

I'm sorry to say that ArchaeoSETI is dead. This was way too much of a blow. I apologize sincerely to all those involved.

As a token, here's the story behind the Part 1 artifacts:

• The objects are only a few hundred years old.
• An alien race, exploring our star system, "crashed" on Mars about six hundred years ago.
• They created a society by ransacking their vehicle.
• At this time, water was to be found sparsely about Mars (underground). But it could indeed be found by some minor digging.
• The "Cylinder" artifact was a religious artifact that was buried above wells that had gone dry (or dry enough to make any further extraction impractical). The cylinder's dimensions were the same ratio as the mass of the oxygen component of a water molecule to the mass of the hydrogen component. The cylinder was filled with water before being sealed. The water froze and expanded. The excess ice was removed and the cylinder was sealed with a microfine weld line (which further tests would have revealed).
• The "Cone" artifacts surrounding the cylinder were placed before the cylinder, when the well was still active. They are merely property-line markers for the well. As noted by others, the angle was the same as that of the bonds in water molecules.
• Other wells like this would be found at various sites around Mars.
• The aliens found the wells drying up as the underground resevoirs around Mars were diminishing rapidly (naturally, and not from overuse).
• The last alien ("Martian"?) died 180 years ago.
• The aliens were autotrophs.