NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A mysterious bowl-shaped metal item was recently discovered on the beach on Staten Island, and as of Thursday, still no one knew what it was.

Gina Bruno and Regina Briordy said they were strolling the sand at Great Kills Beach when they came upon the bizarre, rusted, thingumybob buried in the sand – with the occasional spider crawling on it.

“I said, ‘What the hell is this?’” Bruno said.

It’s about 3 feet in diameter, CBS2’s Scott Rapoport was told. Bruno laid down over it to try to determine its measurements.

It weighs about 150 pounds. But where did it come from?

“Honestly, I thought it dropped from the sky and was a meteor,” Bruno said.

Parks police then came and roped the area off with yellow tape just to be safe.

Some bystanders speculated that whatever it was, it might actually be an old World War II water mine.

“I thought it was a bomb,” Bruno said.

Bruno posted pictures on Facebook resulting in a slew of ever so helpful comments, including, “Don’t touch it,” “Run,” “Call your shrink,” and the ever insightful remark, “It’s a plane turd.”

So the question remains, what exactly is it, and where did it come from?

CBS2 asked agents from the National Park Service, who were sent to the scene to remove it with a front-end loader.

“I’m not sure what it is. But it’s basically hollow on the other side, and it looks like some kind of metal fire pit or something,” a National Parks Service representative said.

He said it definitely was not a bomb or a meteor, and it did not fall from the sky. But on Thursday night, it was headed to the scrap heap.

CBS2’s Rapoport spoke to the Federal Park Police late Thursday. They said there was still no word on what the metal object was.