PARIS -- A scientist claims to have found a drawing of a flying saucer on the wall of an Egyptian tomb!

"This is it -- this is the evidence we've been looking for," Dr. Isadora Demazure told reporters in Paris. "Space aliens really did contact the ancient Egyptians.

"This drawing proves it -- once and for all."

The expert refused to say exactly where the drawing is located, other than to say she found it in a 3,000-year-old tomb on the banks of the Nile.

She acknowledged that some of her colleagues would like to inspect the tomb before declaring the drawing authentic.

But she insists that it is genuine -- and claims her still photographs and videotapes prove it.

"The spaceship appears to be of classic UFO design," Dr. Demazure said. "It rather looks like an upside-down dinner plate with a lip or a rib running around its lower edge.

"There is a cockpit or observation deck on top, covered with a clear dome. There is also a lighted dome underneath, but there are no visible life-forms.

"I have no doubt that this is a spaceship," she added. "There is nothing else it could be."

Fragments of an unusually strong and lightweight metal found in the tomb have so far defied analysis, said the expert.

"But there is a very real possibility that they are extraterrestrial in origin," she continued. "They certainly aren't familiar to us.

"They are nothing like we have ever seen before."

The expert is currently negotiating with a major European publisher who wants rights to the photos and videotape she shot inside the tomb.

Dr. Demazure refused to say how much she has been offered. But publishing sources say she'll get at least $75,000 for the photo package, maybe more.

Queried by journalists, Egyptologist Andre Lafont called Dr. Demazure's discovery "interesting, but anticlimactic."

"UFO researchers and Egyptologists already know that extraterrestrials were in contact with the ancient Egyptians," he said.

"Space aliens gave them many aspects of their culture. They helped them build the pyramids."