Grist for the mill, artefact

Grist for the mill

All agents had reported and, finally, Gregory had "grist for the mill" as he put it himslef. It was not his fault that some pieces of information turned out to be iron grains of nonsense and the threshing stone of logic wrecked trying to process them.

Artefact

The Artefact, as it was named, was found buried in the depth of a moon crater. Innumerous hours were spent trying to crack the mystery of this peculiar object and penetrate its shell revealing so advanced a technology that stood behind its invulnerability. The thing was stubbornly transmitting a short and endlessly repeating series of impulses on all possible radio frequencies. One fact was plain now – humanity is not alone in the universe. 

A thousand years after, when humanity left its cradle and spread across the Milky Way, many more siblings of The Artefact were found on different planets. Some of them were even found on small planets, comets, and asteroids. All of them, however, were transmitting this unchangeable and incomprehensible message.

Maybe it is best for mankind to be in ignorance of its real meaning. "We were here!" shouted all The Artefacts in the blackness of the space.