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Elite: Dangerous alien monoliths found by following star clusters in trailer

If you touch this, and you're an ape, you invent tools.

More proof, if it were needed, that you can do anything you set your mind to has been provided by a member of the Elite: Dangerous community, who has discovered a hidden planet by picking up on obscure details in a trailer. 

Want to claim a corner of Reddit for yourself? There are plenty more mysteries to unearth in our list of the best space games on PC.

The Elite: Dangerous community has been investigating the existence of aliens since the trailer for version 1.2, which teased the existence of ‘Unknown Artefacts’. (These aliens are probably the Thargoids, who were antagonists in the original Elite. They are thus certainly hostile, but no one seems to have questioned the wisdom of hunting them down yet.)

For over a year since, the alien mystery has slowly deepened, with unknown artefacts appearing in the game, alongside probes that shut down your ship and talk in a creepy insectoid chitter when scanned.

The latest twist came yesterday, as a player named ‘xdeath’ discovered some of the most extensive alien treasures yet. After his triumph was posted on Reddit, others were able to track down his discovery. One such player, a YouTuber named Josh Hawkins, uploadedfootage to his channelof him exploring a formation of sinister structures and unearthing dozens of artefacts, some of which are of a kind unseen thus far. The most impressive thing about this story, though, is the manner in which xdeath found the site.

Check out the trailer for version 2.2 of the game, particularly itsfinal scene, and you’ll notice a sinister alien monolith rising out of the ground. Xdeath, though, saw more: he saw the star clusters in the background and the craters on the nearby planet. Here’san imgur post.

Using these as his clues, he was able to track down the planet, and become the first player in Elite: Dangerous’s huge universe to explore the alien site. It was enough to impress David Braben, creator of the Elite franchise:

Sadly, if anyone was hoping for this discovery to trigger a wholesale invasion of Thargoids, it hasn’t happened yet. In fact, no one fully understands the signficance of these unknown artefacts. Elite: Dangerous is still without certain gameplay features promised at the start of its second season, and many in the community (to judge bythis subreddit) seem to think that an alien attack would be best when the game is more fully fleshed out. Perhaps xdeath’s remarkable discovery will mean a whole lot more after a couple more updates.

If you’d like to catch up on the mystery, check outits threadon Frontier Developments’ official forum.