The Mystery of the Coprolite.

Every few years, a new test becomes standard and we include it on every sample we receive without thinking about it. We record everything and ensure that there is minimal loss of material to allow for repeat tests from other labs. We also include a backup sample preserved onsite to allow further testing if required. We used all of our back-ups in repeat tests to confirm our initial results. I still don't believe it but the numbers can't be anything but the truth.

This sample ended up being classified as a coprolite, which is fossilized feces. The contents were normal in almost every way for all tests but two. There was a high amount of gold dust and the sample was over 5 million years old.

The gold was the first thing that caught our eye, in this case literally. While doing the visual examination of our first sample, the yellow reflection was hard to miss in several places on the surface. I'm not sure of the exact percentage right now, but I'm sure some people would have considered it worth mining this coprolite as a gold source if they were able to find enough of it. We put it through every test we could think of and one of the more exotic ones gave us the unbelievable age of 5.23 million years since this material had been exposed to sunlight.

We repeated all of our tests and sent the rest of our samples to sister labs to have them perform their own tests. They all came back with the same results. Whoever had left this sample, had done so long before humans were supposed to have existed as a species. We included our results along with the repeated testing results back to the group that had sent the sample and have never heard back from them.