The Vandalien Artifact

If Samantha Vandalien acquires an alien artifact from a UFO encounter and both the government and local criminal elements consider it little more than a priceless trinket, benefactors may be watching, judging, evaluating. What lessons will be learned in the end when parties loyal to those alien benefactors are told of the true nature of the gift? Will we ever be able to make use of it, or have not enough millennia passed between us and our genetic apeish cousins to achieve an end so noble?