Ancient Crater

Initial excavations into the base of the crater revealed a fully-formed cylinder of impactite lodged deep into the earth.

This vein must have originated from a meteoric impact of extremely high velocity. Initial calculations demonstrate the object must have arrived at a measurable fraction of the speed of light. It's a wonder that it made it to the surface.

At the termination point of the impactite vein, we have discovered an expansive cave system.

Pools of underground water support thin lines of pale vegetation along the cavern walls. At the bottom of one of these pools lies the remnants of an anomalous spherical object. It is not a natural formation, and appears to be the source of this impact site.

We have recovered the sphere from the underground lake.

While covered in vegetative growth, much of it remains fully intact. Its construction is a strange mix of highly sophisticated design and crude assembly. Perfectly smooth metallic plates cover the frontal portion of the ship, which must have reduced friction significantly upon atmospheric entry.

The trajectory of its resting site aligns with the vein of impactite, confirming that this sphere is the source of the metamorphic rock that led us here. Even more incredibly, there are signs that this vessel had passengers.

We have recovered a cache of documents from within the ancient sphere, each written in an archaic version of our own language. Several of these mention names associated with our most sacred legends.

An intricate network of ladders snakes upward from the impact site to a massive tunnel system. Based on the varying ages of the rope fibers, these caverns must have been occupied for several generations as the crash survivors worked their way toward the surface.

However, nothing we'd discovered thus far could have prepared us for the final revelation: one of the upper chambers contained a burial site. DNA analysis conducted on the remains within revealed a shocking truth: these people are our ancestors.

Where exactly they came from, or why this place was forgotten, is yet unknown. The salvaged documents are in a poorly preserved state, but we have recovered a data log from the sphere. It clearly shows that the vessel arrived in our star system by means of the Astral Rift near ….

While clearly less advanced than our own tech, this sphere is a testament to its builders desperation and ingenuity. This was a final effort to escape what must have been a terrible fate on the far side of the rift.