Cone
A thermal artifact found exclusively in the Wild North.
The appearance of this anomalous formation confuses many stalkers, but not scientists, who know to trust their instruments. Despite a hypothesis suggesting that organic cells are replaced with mineral substances, analysis of artifact fragments has shown no evidence of any internal cellular structure.
The first stalker to discover the Cone believed the artifact to be an unusual fruit of the Chernobyl pine and attempted to pass the sample to the flora and fauna department through a familiar operative of Research Institute 7. According to the operative, the scientists had already cooked up a hundred theories about anomalous pine trees by the time Professor Cubov happened to wander into the biologists' wing.