On February 17, 2026, the first day of the Chinese New Year in Nanyang County, Shangqiu City, Henan Province, on the G343 National Highway, nearly a thousand people gathered to pick up what they thought was “silver,” exclaiming, “Pie in the sky has fallen.” This resulted in a traffic jam and paralysis of the national highway. However, official testing later revealed that it was aluminum alloy scrap.
Videos taken by netizens showed multiple cars parked on the emergency lane, with many tourists bending over to pick up circular white disc-shaped objects on the roadside green belt. These objects resembled buttons or batteries of different sizes, with corrosion or signs of use. Some called it “silver” while others joked about “pie falling from the sky.”
The crowd gathered more and more at the scene, next to the main road. Many online videos were captioned with statements like “Thousands picking up silver, unsure if it’s real or fake.”
Some netizens conducted tests on the collected “silver.”
Local resident Ms. Zhang told the media that her son picked up some white disc-shaped objects on the G343 road. She tried heating them with flames, but the white objects did not catch fire, change color, or produce any smell.
She mentioned that it was the first time she had seen these white disc-shaped objects and believed they were not silver, although she was unsure of the specific material.
Regarding the material of the white disc-shaped objects, some netizens discussed, “Looks like silver contacts, lucky finders.” “Hearing that it’s silver, how did it end up on the roadside green belt?” “Probably zinc-plated stamping waste dropped during transportation.”
Some speculated, “These are leftovers from the eye machine punching at the construction site.”
A blogger used a spectrometer for testing and found no relation to gold or silver, only aluminum.
On February 19, the Nanyang County Public Security Bureau’s traffic police team confirmed, after testing, that the white disc-shaped objects were aluminum alloy scrap, not silver, and the source of the scrap was unknown.
In response, a blogger in a video said, “Spent the whole afternoon picking them up, only to find out later that they are scrap aluminum alloy dropped from a truck.”
This incident sparked discussions among netizens, with some saying, “Don’t pick up random metal parts from the ground, there are too many cases of it.” “Greed is innate.” “Ah, without any safety awareness, radiation could be life-threatening.”
The recent surge in the gold and silver markets has increased the social attention on gold and silver.
Current affairs commentator Li Linyi mentioned that in ancient China, there was a principle of not picking up lost items on the road, but after the Communist Party came to power in China, it damaged people’s morals, leading many to stop at nothing for personal gain. This incident may be related to the poor economy, with many trying to make quick money for financial reasons.