On the south bank of a saltwater lake sits a metallic pyramid said to be between 50 and 60 meters tall. In front of the structure lie three caves, each with triangular openings. The two smaller caves have collapsed, but the largest central cave is still passable. Inside, on the ground, lies a 40 cm length of pipe, spliced in half. Another red-brown pipe is sunk into the earth, only its tip visible above the ground.

Outside the cave, half pipes, scraps of metal, and strangely shaped stones are scattered along the southern bank of the lake. Some pipes run into the water; it is unknown what may lurk in the salty depths.

Should this site have been discovered in the outskirts of any of China's urban areas, the story would be about the perils of industrial pollution and its impact on the fragile environment. But this is at the foot of a mountain named Baigong Shan, in a remote corner of Qinghai province, 40 km from the nearest city. Could this - as frenzied speculation in China's press would have it - be the remains of an alien launch pad rumored to be between 30,000 and 20 million years old?

There's Life, Jim...

"The environment is harsh here," says Qin Jianwen, head of the local Delingha government publicity department. "There are no residents, let alone modern industry - just a few migrant herdsmen to the north of the mountains."

"Unless you see [the relics] with your own eyes you just wouldn't believe it," says Lanzhou Morning News journalist Ye Zhou, who was one of the first journalists on the scene. "It's hard to stick to scientific language when you talk about what's there. There are just all these iron pipes everywhere... it felt very creepy."

The site of what has been dubbed "The E.T. Relics" (外星人遗址) by the Chinese press was first reported in 1998 by a group of U.S. scientists on the trail of dinosaur fossils. The team alerted the local Delingha government to the presence of the structures, but the story went largely ignored until a June Henan newspaper reported the findings of the site. From their base in neighboring Lanzhou, Ye and his colleagues decided to pick up the story and investigate for themselves, filing six reports detailing the expedition and their ongoing findings. "We just stuck to the facts," says Ye. "We tried to simply describe the site as we saw it."

Facts proved difficult to pin down, however. After a day of cross-country driving through thunderstorms, they arrived at Baigong Shan. "It was like hell," he recalls. "Nothing grows there." As to the question on everyone's lips - whether it's evidence of extra-terrestrial activities - Ye is pragmatic. "There's not likely to be any kind of unified answer that satisfies everyone in the near future," he says. "Personally, though, I believe it's just an unusual geological phenomenon. Why would an extra-terrestrial want to go to such an awful place? There's nothing there."

From local government official Qin's point of view, however, it's obvious why an extra-terrestrial would choose the desolate mountain slopes. "Some have suggested that the site was a launch tower left be extra-terrestrials," says Qin in a June 16 interview with Xinhua. "They base their theory on the fact that it's very high altitude (it's 2200 meters up) with very thin air, making it an ideal place to practice astrology."

According to the Xinhua news, results of preliminary rock and metal analysis show the pipes are 30 per cent ferric oxide, with high content of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide; eight per cent of the sample's makeup was categorized "unidentifiable". Engineer Liu Shaolin from Xitieshan Smelting Plant who carried out the analysis says the levels of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide point to the pipes being on the mountainside for a long time - although his estimate was significantly more recent than the U.S. scientists' original theory that the iron was 300,000 years old. Liu found that it was 5000 years old; impressive, considering modern human smelting methods date back a mere 2000 years.

"The results have made the site even more mysterious," says Qin. Then again, counters Lanzhou journalist Ye, he would say that. "The Delingha government is billing it as tourist attraction," he says. "There's already a road sign pointing the way to the E.T. relics, and they've got it in their investment and tourism guides."

Stranger than Fiction

Preliminary reports completed, researchers from the Beijing UFO Research Organization are now planning a more thorough expedition due to depart in late-July. Qinghai project director Wei Yuguang, recently returned from the site, describes what he found as a wasteland. "The area is totally deserted,' he says. "There is no living creature within 500 miles, although beyond that invisible boundary there is rich wildlife. There is no transportation, and the road is very difficult to follow - a car carrying Xinhua journalists ended up stuck in a ditch."

While he wouldn't comment on whether what he saw were genuine extra-terrestrial relics, he applauds the fuss the discoveries have created. "It's high time UFOs came out of the closet," he says. "I'm glad so many people want to go to Qinghai and take a look at the site."

The July expedition, he says, will be comprised of a team of ten experts, ten journalists, and a CCTV film crew. Competition to join is hot, however, says Wei, "and so far there are 40 experts who have signed on. The oldest volunteer is in his 80s, but since the altitude is more than 2000 meters, I have set the age limit at 60 years."

The press frenzy, says Wei, is largely down to his own efforts to stir up interest. "When I initially came to the site I wrote lots of articles," he says. "But none of the newspapers used them. So I posted the news online, and with the help of the Delingha government, media interest began to grow. Now, I've had reporters coming to me one after another, wanting to visit the site."

Joseph Wang, acting chairman of the Hong Kong UFO Association, is guarded in his view of the Qinghai relics expedition. "Without concrete on-site research it's hard to comment on what's going on in Qinghai," says Wang. "I could well believe that the pipes are an extra-terrestrial engineering project, though."

"On the whole, UFO research in China is relatively scientific," Wang continues. "Most of the discussion takes place within the confines of space flight and military plans. People only make so much fuss about UFOs because they believe they seldom see them. But to make an analogy, cats could very well be extra-terrestrial. It's just that because we see cats all the time, we accept them as earth creatures. But how do we know?"

Whatever the findings of the expedition may be, the flurry of media reports and relative willingness of officials to discuss the possibility of unexplainable phenomena is surprising, especially when compared with recorded sightings elsewhere in the world. "There is a definite liberty in China to talk about paranormal things," says German UFOlogist Harwig Hausdorf, author of the book The Chinese Roswell exploring paranormal interpretations of the White Pyramids discovered outside the city of Xi'an in 1994. "In Chinese mythology, there are legends of emperors descending from the people of the stars, (riding) on metal dragons."

In the course of his own research on the White Pyramids, Hausdorf says there was no problem gathering evidence to support his theories of ancient paranormal activity. "The Chinese authorities have made great leaps since the 1970s," he says. "In the United States, it's like a military dictatorship, with UFO areas like Area 51(a secret base rumored to house aliens and UFOs for genetic testing and more) restricted."

Compare this, says Hausdorf, with his research in Xi'an. "The pyramids were first discovered by the U.S. Flying Tiger pilots in World War II," he says. Although nobody believed them, the pilots took photographs, which Hausdorf was able to obtain. "In 1994, I obtained permission to check out the area with a video camera, and I literally stepped on the pyramids. The authorities were very free about the whole experience. You'd have way more trouble stepping into these areas in the U.S.'

That liberty to discuss paranormal activity in China is due to be stretched even further, with the first Chinese UFO Conference due to be held in Dalian in August. Whatever the scientists finally decide, it is likely that the Qinghai extra-terrestrial relics will be high on the agenda.

But what does it all mean, anyway, if there is live out there after all? "So what if we discover that there is alien life?" says Wang dismissively. "Life will still go on."

_Contact the authors on: editor@cityweekend.com.cn _