Extraterrestrial thing found in my suspension fork! I have recently disassembled my suspension fork and found an extraterrestrial piece of rubber in the coil spring. After some highly accurate measuring it was safe to say that this rubber piece is actually preventing the spring to compress properly. I have removed the thing and the measured travel of my suspension fork doubled from 45mm to ~90mm. I didn't yet have the opportunity to test how it works out on the trails, however. 

Do you know what this thing and it's purpose is? If it actually has a purpose, would it be a dumb idea to cut it in half so that it doesn't reduce travel?
It's an elastomer damper, see figure 6 on the image below. Without a damper, the fork would bob uncontrollably like a pogo stick, which is not good at all when riding a bike. Elastomer dampers are a sign of low-end forks, while more expensive forks use oil damping or other forms of damping. You can replace the stock piece of elastomer with less rigid or shorter one to adjust the fork feel.