A SF Question: Random Button Pushing

Here is one of those theoretical questions inspired by my reading of speculative fiction. If you found an alien artifact at what point would you leave it alone and/or call for scientists or the government? At the very beginning? I ask because a lot of stories seem to make the assumption (for the sake of having a story) that the person seeing this will mess around with the machine or device until well after it does something harmful or scary. The assumption being that the alien device is incredibility durable and will or could work rather than being like most technology and being a complex brick after being abandoned out of doors for any length of time.

The 'right' answer with actual artifacts is to leave it in place once you realize it is an artifact and call a professional. Naturally with a real alien artifact assuming that this story is otherwise set in the real world it might be hard to get a serious archeology type to come look at it. So could something less incredible, but also unlikely. Like a slab of stone with unknown writing on it, come to think of it.

But certainly in worlds of rubber science people seem all to ready to investigate themselves trying to figure out what the this thing does. To someone who knows what it does it might resemble a chimp finding a loaded gun. But in stories it often turns out that the person can figure out what the thing does and then reverse engineer how it works to make a fortune.

So how about it? Are you one of the brave characters who'd boldly push back the boarders of ignorance by randomly pushing buttons or would you give the thing to someone who'd hopefully have some sort of bunker to test the thing in using waldo units?