I think it's pretty obvious what this is.
Ask yourself, what if this happened IRL, on Earth, today?
What if someone found a clearly manufactured artifact someplace they weren't expecting to find it?
In a place which was easily accessible and open to the public, but which (apparently) just hadn't been thoroughly mapped, scanned, or colonized yet?
And what if the artifacts could be easily manufactured with modern technology, but they explicitly reference some really interesting ancient enigma?
And what if each artifact included instructions on where to find the next artifact?
What would you generally expect to find at the end of this trail of bread-crumbs?
And, oh look, it's in the media.
And participation in the artifact-hunt is spreading virally.
We've *never* seen anything like *that* before on Earth, have we?
