Carbon Dating of Alien Artifact Returns Value of 'Thursday'

Radiocarbon dating of Xenolith MR-0099, a metallic object recovered from a Siberian impact crater, has produced a result that has baffled laboratory technicians and physicists alike. The accelerator mass spectrometer, which normally returns an age in years, returned the word 'Thursday.' 'The machine doesn't output words,' said Dr. Ivan Petrov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' dating laboratory. 'It outputs numbers. Specifically, it measures the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 and calculates an age. It has no capability to produce text. And yet.' The test was repeated seventeen times across three laboratories on two continents. Each attempt returned the same result: Thursday. The spectrometer is functioning normally for all other samples. A control sample of medieval wood correctly dated to 1340 CE immediately before and after the xenolith test. 'We tried recalibrating with known standards, replacing the sample preparation, and running the xenolith alongside controlled samples,' said Dr. Petrov. 'The known samples returned correct dates. The xenolith returned Thursday. Every single time.' Theoretical physicist Dr. Yara Santos has proposed that the xenolith may be composed of material that exists in a fixed temporal state. 'If the object originates from a framework where time is not linear, a carbon dating system that assumes linear time might default to a categorical output rather than a numerical one,' she said. 'In other words, the object isn't from a when. It's from a Thursday.' This explanation has satisfied no one. The xenolith has been placed in a sealed containment unit pending further analysis. A note on the containment log reads: 'Do not date this object again. It knows what day it is and that is more than enough information.' Dr. Petrov has requested funding for a study on what happens if you try to carbon date the xenolith on an actual Thursday. He has been told the answer is probably still Thursday.