REEDS SPRING, Mo. -- Bob White's telephone hasn't stopped ringing since he placed a four-line ad in a Southwest Missouri newspaper offering to sell what he is convinced is a piece of a flying saucer for $10 million.

Most of the callers are just curious or simply poking fun at the listing under "Antiques & Collectibles" in the Springfield News-Leader.

White, 71, has the object on display at his Museum of the Unexplained in the tiny town of Reeds Spring. The story of how he came to own it is as curious as the silver object, which resembles an oversized pine cone with a rough, feathered exterior.

He and a friend were on a remote road near Grand Junction, Colo., about 2 a.m. in the early 1980s when they spotted a strange light far ahead.

"It was bright orange, like a full harvest moon," he said. "It got larger and brighter as we got closer."

White reached over and turned off the car lights and ignition, allowing the car to coast closer to the object, which had grown to the size of a large barn. Over the objections of his companion, White got out for closer look.

His companion became frightened and turned the headlights on. The object shot into the sky. As it did, "a piece of something" broke off from it and fell to the ground.

"Several friends have told what it isn't," White said. "No one has told me what it is."

80 percent aluminum

He has had the nearly 2-pound metal object analyzed by five different academic laboratories, which determined that it was 80 percent aluminum. Some of its other components could not be identified, White said. They also agreed it underwent rapid heating and cooling. But none certified it as being from an Unidentified Flying Object.

White, however, points to a recently unsealed document by the Counter Intelligence Corps that refers to a "Flying Saucer in Denmark" in the 1940s. It includes pictures of an object tagged by the Army as file No. 202085 that resembles White's object.

The Counter Intelligence Corps document is at www.rmd.belvoir.army.mil/FOIAERR.htm.