… And the tribe who lived above,  had angered God so, that he cast them from the sky,  and buried them below …

 

Through the spread of an oral creation story about a deeply saturated blue material, dug up from the ground and appropriately named as “Sky Stone,” whispers of a mysterious substance began to circulate around the world in the early 1990’s.  With questionable circumstances surrounding its discovery, as well as the mythical tales of how the material came into existence, Sky Stone is more akin to a holy relic than a rock.  One would have to rely mostly on faith in order to believe its extraordinary background claims.

Now, for the very first time, legitimate, scientific results garnered through state of the art analysis, undertaken by two of America’s most reputable institutions for material science research, the genuine nature of this previously unidentifiable / unclassified substance can be documented for public scrutiny and discussion.

The story begins in Asia during a rare gem and mineral sourcing trip by the American artist and designer, Jared Collins.  Like an obsessed orchid hunter looking for a new species to bring into humanity’s collective knowledge, Collins follows leads worldwide on exceedingly rare materials and substances, and when he finds them, incorporates those acquisitions into artworks like an ethereal object of Magic.  From his studio based in Bali, Indonesia, Collins creates meticulously fine sculptures and jewelry that redefine the meaning of rare art.  Some of his greatest creations to date utilize extremely scarce, non-terrestrial materials acquired though negotiations with private individuals and institutions, who he somehow gets to agree to part with samples.

In 2013, Collins contacted a well known rare gem dealer in Hong Kong, and requested to pay him a personal visit at his small penthouse apartment while he was traveling through the country.  Granted permission to do so,  Collins spent a late night rifling though hundreds of bags, containing thousands of rare stones from all over the world.  Nothing however really seemed to catch his eye and Collins would repeatedly ask the dealer, “is this it?  Don’t you have anything else?”

After sifting through countless bags of gemstones that Collins seemed uninterested in, there, sitting on the table right in front of him the entire time, was a +/- 2×3 centimeter, smooth and irregularly shaped “rock” with fine white veins running through it.  There was also a small cutaway piece in a miniature ziplock bag with a bar code on it which was accompanying the larger rock.  Removing it from the plastic, Collins noted;  “It was a curious thing with a very pretty blue color and when I picked up the stone to examine it, it was strangely light for its size and I thought it was some sort of a synthesized or hybrid wax/plastic material, yet it simultaneously appeared to be a natural stone of some kind.  It was perplexing and I had no idea what I was looking at and I had no point of reference to compare it to anything else I had previously seen or handled before.”

Intrigued, he asked the dealer what he was holding. “That’s Sky Stone!,” he was excitedly told.  Collins replied that he had never heard of it.  The dealer went on to explain, “Sky Stone has a story behind it that is almost impossible to believe.  It is said to have come from the heavens.  God, angered by something that had transpired, punished the beings who were living in the sky and cast them into stone and hurled them back to Earth where they were buried into the ground.”  He continued, “I know it seems like nonsense, but that’s how the story was told to me by the person who in fact provided me with several physical samples of it.  This man was the also the one who first taught me about precious stones and it was he who inspired me to study and become interested in gems.  He’s a genuinely intelligent person and he believes the legend of the stone, is to some degree true, so there must be a reason for it…”

Knowing that myths and legends, can in some cases, have genuine truths hidden within them, perhaps Sky Stone did too as Collins began to theorize?  If it was storied to have come from the sky, it may have just been a witnessed meteorite fall that the observers were not aware of what such occurrences were?  There are however, no deep and evenly colored blue meteorites in existence, so that would most certainly exclude it as a meteorite.  Collins was interested in better historical references on the stone and took into account the person he was speaking with.  The dealer, a man with many years in the rare gem trade and with a good reputation worldwide, held steadfast to his opinion that this material was something highly unusual and exceptionally special.  Collins persistently asked what his evidence of the stone’s uniqueness was. The dealer replied, “when I received several pieces of the stone, I too was thinking this story has no credibility, so just for the hell of it, I cut off a small sample from my larger piece and sent it over to Dr. Preeti at GRS Swisslabs to see what he had to say about it through testing.  Dr. Preeti called me back to ask what this stuff was because he couldn’t determine its composition and ended up returning it as “unidentifiable.”  Dr. Preeti only mentioned that he did not believe that the material itself was natural, but the element creating the blue color might be organic. Nothing, however, was able to be conclusively proven.

 

Intrigued, but highly skeptical of the stone actually being anything it was claimed to be, Collins proposed to buy the small cutaway piece from the dealer so he could study it further, but the dealer just shrugged it off and refused to sell it.  He wouldn’t even name a price for the larger full stone.  Collins was somewhat taken back by this as the dealer’s business was solely based on buying and selling stones, not collecting them.  As it turned out that night, Sky Stone was the only thing in the entire room not going to be made available for sale, and the only thing he was interested to take out of there.  Collins ended up leaving Hong Kong with a haunting feeling that something important may have just slipped through his fingers and he never forgot about that blue stone.

Disappointed in failing to successfully negotiate the purchase of a small piece which could be researched more carefully, Collins was unwaveringly inspired to find out more information on the origin and history of Sky Stone. What he would shortly come to learn added to the stone’s mystery as well as his skepticism of it.

Searching online, there is a handful of information, though none of it verifiable or associated with a credible source. One particular posting from an Italian laboratory showed 2 graphs purporting the composition of the elemental composition of Sky Stone:

Another report found online claims:
“Tests of Sky Stone were carried out at laboratories of the University of Geneva, the University of Rome, Utrecht, Tokyo and Freiberg, Germany.

Based on the fact that this material does not confirm to any known natural minerals in existence, it is likely an artificial material.  This beautiful blue colored stone with thin white veins running through it is known as “”Sky Stone”” or “”Stone of Heaven.””

Its composition was found to be composed of 77% oxygen, along with traces of carbon, silicon, calcium and sodium.

The composition makes the “Sky Stone” similar to a kind of concrete or stucco, and seems to have been artificially colored. The natives living in the area where the stone was found, already knew about its existence because this stone-like artifact used to pop out during the digging in the area.

Another mystery related to the stone of heaven is that this artifact is always found in soil layers dating to at least 12000 BC. The stone was certainly produced by an unknown, highly advanced civilization lost in time.”

Sky Stone material was also claimed to have made a brief appearance at the weekend market in Marakesh, Morroco (where they also specialize in meteorites.)  It was going by the name of  “kryptonite.”

Enter the Italian “Professor,” Angelo Pitoni. A self-proclaimed botanist, gemstone expert, honored and decorated special forces operative, discoverer of emerald mines, lost civilizations, Mayan statues, and at least half a dozen other claims of great discoveries of substantial historical and financial significance. Unfortunately, though, with all of these extraordinary achievements,  enough for at least 5 lifetimes, Pitoni is not able to be conclusively linked to, or associated with, any credible Universities or Institutions, and none of the statements that he (or others) put forth publicly about his life can be proven or verified anywhere of significant record. His “discovery” and his personal story regarding “the lady in the rocks,” in which he suggested that he found the world’s largest ancient carving of a female head and torso cut into a mountain cliff side, and that she was regularly “talking to him,” could be categorized as looney.  Pitoni is not exactly the kind of character one would like to bestow a lot of trust on, and hence the reason why Collins became ever more skeptical of Sky Stone and its real story when he found out who the person purporting to have discovered it in an old village outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone…

…None other than Pitoni himself.

 

From what little information there is accessible about Pitoni, most of which is written in online forums in Italian, it’s essentially impossible get a legitimate handle on the man’s true background and what, if any, genuine credentials he had as an archaeologist and explorer. Rather than expending a tremendous amount of time on the legitimacy of Pitoni or his claims, we are going to focus our attention on the physical material itself. The question to be answered conclusively once and for all –  What is Sky Stone?  Is it a natural or a man made material?  Is its existence something truly special or just a concocted hoax?  Getting to the bottom of the true nature and composition of Sky Stone could in fact reveal the true nature of the discoverer.  So, to answer this question, the story goes back to Jared Collins.

More than a year after Collins left Hong Kong, he could not stop thinking about the piece of Sky Stone that he had seen on that gem dealer’s table.  He searched tirelessly online to see if there might be an alternative source for the material where it could be acquired. Perhaps from a private individual who might have a small piece which could be purchased and studied?  But to that end, there was literally no one to be found. The only place there was a piece known to exist publicly was at Erich Von Daniken’s museum, the Mystery Park, in Interlaken, Switzerland.  Collins contacted the Museum with a letter of request in an attempt to buy a very small cutaway piece from one of their 2 large stones. The museum gave no reply and hence rejected it.

Realizing that the only place where a piece of this material might still possibly be able to be acquired, Collins had no other option than to reach out to the Hong Kong gem dealer, again.

Collins e-mailed the dealer with a carefully worded letter to test the waters and to see if he had changed his mind as to whether or not he would be willing to sell him either his full piece of Sky Stone, or if not, then at least the small cutaway piece.  To his surprise, the 12 months of time which had passed since their last conversation, there now seemed to be less reservations from the dealer, who said he was open to the possibility.  After several further e-mails and a phone call, Collins made a proposal to the gem dealer which was accepted,  and he agreed to sell the cutaway piece.  That small piece of Sky Stone was soon on its way to Collins’ studio in Bali.

 

 

Collins requested that the dealer send an accompanying letter with the piece of Sky Stone, detailing as much information as possible regarding his understanding of the material’s background, how he came in to possession of it, and anything further he personally knew about, or had heard about, Sky Stone.  The following are direct excerpts from that letter: