UFO
© RIA Novosti. Khomenko

An aluminium plate found during building work in Vladivostok has got scientists baffled - and could be evidence of aliens visiting Russia's Pacific coast.

Humans have been using aluminium for about a century, but the plate unearthed by Valery Dvuzhilny is 2,000 years old, he claims.

The artefact surfaced during preparatory work to build a new bridge in the far eastern city for the 2012 APEC summit.

Dvuzhilny, a marine scientist with a long-standing interest in the paranormal, found it as engineering work started.

"For years, I've been looking for cosmic matter in the rocks," Dvuzhilny, who also heads the local Cosmo-search bureau told Komsomolaskaya Pravda. "They carry not only the prints of plants and bones of extinct animals, but also...I hope that these are the material traces of extraterrestrial visits that might have occurred in the distant past millions of years ago."

Confused colleagues

While it's clear that Dvuzhilny wants to believe that intergalatic diners dropped off their dirty dishes while passing through, peer testing may back up his outlandish claim.

Soil specialist Valery Parnyakov determined that the 6 cm plate was buried in ancient sediments no younger than 2,000 years. It was sent to the St Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, where Dr Igor Okunev gave it a more detailed analysis.

"The plate contains 97 per cent aluminum, as well as calcium, iron, coper, samarium, lead and tungsten. "We conducted a search for similar alloys in our data bank," Okunev said. "But we couldn't find anything like it...The only thing that is clear is that it had nothing to do with humans."

Relics from outer space

Also off the coast of Vladivostok engineers discovered tiny metal particles in rock samples. Only a few millimeters in diameter and very rusty these were tungsten alloys in the shape of plates, balls and pyramids. "They hit the sandstone 250 million years ago, and people had nothing to do with them," said Parnyakov.

Russians meet ET

Dvuzhilny's plate is one of a long line of UFO stories from Russia.

Recently retired Kalmyk president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov believes he met yellow extra-terrestrials when staying in Moscow.

Meanwhile the group Russian Light has carried out research into the Perm Anomalous Region, a kind of Ural Bermuda Triangle which they say is a hotspot of alien activity.