A mystery “unidentified” dome that washed up on a West Australian beach has left police perplexed.
Locals at Green Head Beach, around 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Perth, discovered the enormous metal item.
Authorities from the state and the federal government are looking into the object, which is not currently thought to be from a commercial aircraft.
Police have asked that people stay a safe distance away since it is being treated as dangerous.
“We want to reassure the community that we are actively engaged in a collaborative effort with various State and Federal agencies to determine the object’s origin and nature,” said the police.
Two of those agencies are the military and Australia’s space agency.
Residents of Green Head Beach said that the cylinder was between 2.5m and 3m long and approximately 2.5m wide.
People went to the beach to view the cylinder, with one local calling it a “wonderful social evening.”
“It was a lovely, still night. The kids were digging sand castles around it,” the resident said.
Geoffrey Thomas, an aviation expert, speculated that the object might have been a fuel tank from a rocket that had crashed into the Indian Ocean at some point in the previous 12 months.
The enormous cylinder may have fallen from a “foreign space launch vehicle,” the Australian Space Agency speculated, adding that it will consult with other international organizations.
Some experts believe it might be a fuel cylinder from an Indian rocket and it may contain toxic chemicals if so.
It is hoped that a serial or catalog number will help in determining what it is.
There was considerable conjecture that the cylinder was from MH370, a plane that vanished off the coast of Western Australia in 2014 carrying 239 people, but Mr Thomas claimed there was “no chance” of that.
“It’s not any part of a Boeing 777 and the fact is MH370 was lost nine-and-a-half years ago so it would show a great deal more wear and tear on the debris,” said Thomas.
