Case file · Retrieval claim

Silpho Moor 'saucer'

A small metal saucer containing copper sheets inscribed with glyphs was found on Silpho Moor near Scarborough.

1957 CE · 54.33, -0.53 · status: claim

The account

The 18-inch object discovered on 21 November 1957 caused a sensation; its parts were rediscovered in a museum about sixty years later.

Its origin was never established.

A home-made "saucer" of ordinary metals, rediscovered in the Science Museum in 2018. Almost certainly a prank, even though the maker is unknown.

Explanation	Weight	Why
A hoax or fabrication	90%	Metallurgists found ordinary materials (a lead-containing shell, copper sheets) with no sign of re-entry heating, and the glyph message read as a quasi-religious text; sceptics traced it to a garage-made hoax.
Genuinely anomalous	4%	No one admitted making it, but the materials are terrestrial.
Something known, misidentified	2%	A model or prop lost by its maker is possible.
Secret human technology	2%	An 18-inch saucer with inscribed copper is not a plausible test object.
Perception, memory or mind	1%	The object is physical; perception is not at issue.
A known natural phenomenon	1%	No natural process makes inscribed metal objects.
A poorly understood natural phenomenon	0%	No natural event is involved.

Official position: Analyses by Manchester University and the Natural History Museum found nothing unusual; the maker was never identified.