FILE: Mojave Desert, Calif.

It was a dark summer night, and Harley Eaton and Connor Rudolph were bored.

The two friends and self-described military collectors were passing time at Rudolph’s house, an old property out in California’s sun-scorched Mojave Desert on a Monday evening earlier this month, when they remembered that one of them had a metal detector in their car. It was unlikely they’d find anything, they thought, especially in the arid region near Palm Springs where they lived.

But they picked up their tools anyway, and began wandering along a barren-looking trail. At first, they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, just the usual array of loose screws and cans. Then, they heard a resounding beep. And it kept getting louder.

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They pulled out their pickaxes and started digging.

Slowly, they began to unearth a corroded metal box resembling a small casket. When they flipped it open, they saw two crimson runes emblazoned on the side that resembled........

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