And the Army was interested in their meta-materials:
Specifically, the Army wants to explore a handful of futuristic materials and technologies the group has either studied or has in its possession, including inertial mass reduction
Inertial mass reduction is pure woo. There were some (navy?) patents that used the same kinds of words you'd see in something scientific, but as they only had to pass a patent lawyer's gaze, not of them refer to meaningful science. I thought the consensus at the time was that the navy was trolling the intelligence agencies overseas, making them think the US had technology it didn't have, and I've seen no evidence to counter that claim (such as a peer reviewed and preferably replicated scientific paper).
Pais works as a scientist, aerospace engineer, and inventor, at the United States Navy's Naval Air Station Patuxent River. His patent applications on behalf of his employers have attracted international attention for their futuristic-sounding technology and potential military and energy-producing applications, but have also led to speculation that they may be misinformation intended to mislead the United States' strategic adversaries about the direction of United States defense research.
...
His patent applications include:
- A "craft using an inertial mass reduction device" (2016), one embodiment of which could be a high speed "hybrid aerospace/undersea craft" able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level",[6] the patent application for which was supported by the Naval Aviation Enterprise's chief technical officer on the grounds that the Chinese military were already developing similar technology.[1]
...
Testing on the feasibility of a High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator (HEEMFG) occurred from October 2016 to September 2019; at a total cost of $508,000 over three years. The vast majority of expenditure was on salaries. The "Pais Effect" could not be proven and no further research was conducted.[8] Brett Tingley wrote for The Drive that "Despite every physicist we have spoken to over the better part of two years asserting that the "Pais Effect" has no scientific basis in reality and the patents related to it were filled with pseudo-scientific jargon, NAWCAD confirmed they were interested enough in the patents to spend more than a half-million dollars over three years developing experiments and equipment to test Pais' theories".[8] Pais remained defiant regarding the veracity of his theories, in an email to The Drive he wrote that his work "culminates in the enablement of the Pais Effect...as far as the doubting SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) are concerned, my work shall be proven correct one fine day...".[8]
I'm a bit confused: is it possible that the army was impressed by the DIRD papers it had commissioned from BAASS via AAWSAP, and thought the TTSA was the same guys? Or am I on the wrong track here?
I'm a bit confused: is it possible that the army was impressed by the DIRD papers it had commissioned from BAASS via AAWSAP, and thought the TTSA was the same guys? Or am I on the wrong track here?
I don't think so. AASWAP was under the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and had been done back in ~2011, though Lacatski and Ried shopped it around the DIA, other parts of the DoD and even Homeland Security with no takers.
It's unclear who if anybody actually read any of the DIRD papers. They almost form a cover story for AASWAP. The papers allowed Lacatski to fulfill AASWAP's stated reason for existence as written in the original RFP (Request For Proposal). It was supposed to be about musings on future technology, not Skinwalker Ranch. Nevertheless, many Skinwalker Ranch associated alums got a taste of public money writing their ideas about where technology might go to produce the DIRDs, including Hal Putoff, Eric Davis, Kit Green and others.
The people at the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command may have seen some of the DIRDs, again it's unclear.
By 2019, I believe DeLong had Putoff and Davis along with Elizondo working for or aligned with his TTSA, so they could have been talking about their contributions and DIRDs they had written and maybe hyping it up to the ACCDC for TTSA.
In addition to the known UFOlogist steering the government in various directions, I think there is a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, let's keep the acronyms going) at work too. Recall things like the DoD delving into remote viewing, Psy and the whole "Men who Stare at Goats" thing. Part of the reasoning for those programs was that the Soviets are doing it or might be doing it and we don't want to fall behind. @FatPhil post above seems to be the same thing. This stuff likely doesn't work, but what if the Chinese figure it out?
TTSA was a completely different entity founded by a charismatic rock band frontman, as compared to Bigelow's BAASS. It's stated goals were a bit different, trying to blend UFO R&D, future tech, government UFO Discloser and entertainment into one package. Ultimately TTSA seems to have been a money funnel for DeLong.
BUT, TTSA did recycle many of the old BAASS, NIDS and Skinwalker Ranch crowd, so there is some definite overlap. Maybe somebody did think TTSA was some form of renewed NIDS or BAASS, but with a former punk/pop rocker at the head of it.
I don't think so. AASWAP was under the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and had been done back in ~2011, though Lacatski and Ried shopped it around the DIA, other parts of the DoD and even Homeland Security with no takers.
It's unclear who if anybody actually read any of the DIRD papers. They almost form a cover story for AASWAP. The papers allowed Lacatski to fulfill AASWAP's stated reason for existence as written in the original RFP (Request For Proposal). It was supposed to be about musings on future technology, not Skinwalker Ranch. Nevertheless, many Skinwalker Ranch associated alums got a taste of public money writing their ideas about where technology might go to produce the DIRDs, including Hal Putoff, Eric Davis, Kit Green and others.
The people at the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command may have seen some of the DIRDs, again it's unclear.
By 2019, I believe DeLong had Putoff and Davis along with Elizondo working for or aligned with his TTSA, so they could have been talking about their contributions and DIRDs they had written and maybe hyping it up to the ACCDC for TTSA.
In addition to the known UFOlogist steering the government in various directions, I think there is a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, let's keep the acronyms going) at work too. Recall things like the DoD delving into remote viewing, Psy and the whole "Men who Stare at Goats" thing. Part of the reasoning for those programs was that the Soviets are doing it or might be doing it and we don't want to fall behind. @FatPhil post above seems to be the same thing. This stuff likely doesn't work, but what if the Chinese figure it out?
TTSA was a completely different entity founded by a charismatic rock band frontman, as compared to Bigelow's BAASS. It's stated goals were a bit different, trying to blend UFO R&D, future tech, government UFO Discloser and entertainment into one package. Ultimately TTSA seems to have been a money funnel for DeLong.
BUT, TTSA did recycle many of the old BAASS, NIDS and Skinwalker Ranch crowd, so there is some definite overlap. Maybe somebody did think TTSA was some form of renewed NIDS or BAASS, but with a former punk/pop rocker at the head of it.
Where do you think Bigelow fits into this whole saga present day? After going through Jacques Vallee's published diaries, Bigelow has been funding a lot of this for decades. He fell for Lazar's claims, Davis and Puthoff took him for a ride for years. Maybe I missed something, but after AAWSAP there has been nothing new. Maybe his UFO itch is gone.
Where do you think Bigelow fits into this whole saga present day? After going through Jacques Vallee's published diaries, Bigelow has been funding a lot of this for decades. He fell for Lazar's claims, Davis and Puthoff took him for a ride for years. Maybe I missed something, but after AAWSAP there has been nothing new. Maybe his UFO itch is gone.
I don't know Alice. Underlying most of his endeavors is a quest to learn about or understand consciousness and if it can transcend death. I think UFOs and all the Skinwalker Ranch stuff was just part of this overall theme. He's nearly 80 years old now and his wife of 55 years passed away in 2020:
Bigelow was married to Diane Mona Bigelow for 55 years until her death in 2020.
It may be that he has moved on from strict UFO studies to consciousness in his later years:
In June 2020, Bigelow founded the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies to support investigations into life after death.[6] In January 2021, he put up an award of US$1 million for anyone who could demonstrate the existence of a life after death.[25]
He sold the ranch off, for a nice little profit, and many of his regulars moved onto TTSA and other places.
I'm looking at 60 next January and I know my perspective is much different now than when I was younger. I've been married for 33 years and losing my wife would add another complication to my world view. Maybe he's just tired and done with it all.
I don't know Alice. Underlying most of his endeavors is a quest to learn about or understand consciousness and if it can transcend death. I think UFOs and all the Skinwalker Ranch stuff was just part of this overall theme. He's nearly 80 years old now and his wife of 55 years passed away in 2020:
Bigelow was married to Diane Mona Bigelow for 55 years until her death in 2020.
It may be that he has moved on from strict UFO studies to consciousness in his later years:
In June 2020, Bigelow founded the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies to support investigations into life after death.[6] In January 2021, he put up an award of US$1 million for anyone who could demonstrate the existence of a life after death.[25]
He sold the ranch off, for a nice little profit, and many of his regulars moved onto TTSA and other places.
I'm looking at 60 next January and I know my perspective is much different now than when I was younger. I've been married for 33 years and losing my wife would add another complication to my world view. Maybe he's just tired and done with it all.
The selling the ranch for a profit is something I haven't heard before. Credit to his real estate marketing abilities. The Institute for Consciousness reminds me a bit of Leslie Kean's book "Surviving Death" in which she goes on about past lives being a thing from interviews with children and other questionable science.
Now that I realize he is quite up there on age it makes sense he took a step back from the UFO topic. It must be tiring putting so much money into something and all you get are stories about werewolves and poltergeists.
Avi Loeb has blogged about further results from his team's Pacific Ocean exploration project, seeking materials from the 'first recognised interstellar meteor'. This time he excitedly reports the discovery of 'spherules'. These are very small (~0.3 mm in 'size' - presumably diameter) and consist mainly of iron with 'some magnesium and titanium but no nickel'. He declares this to be anomalous compared to man-made or known cosmic sources (oceanic sources such as deep-sea vents are not mentioned.) The blog is here:
A key question is obviously what other sources of small spherules there might be. In a quick search I found at least one accessible research paper: a study of 'Cosmic spherules from metalliferous sediments'. Quite a lot of spherules were found, and
Detailed microscopic observations under high magnifications implied these microspherules seemed to be cosmic in origin like those widely discussed in the literature.
The spherules studied ranged from about 50 to 150 micrometers in diameter, which if my calculation is correct is between 0.05 and 0.15 millimeters. This is rather smaller than the 0.3 mm mentioned by Loeb. The chemical composition of the spherules was mainly iron, but with some magnesium, titanium and many other elements. The majority contained some nickel, but where present it was usually less than 0.1 percent of the spherule by weight, and in nearly half of the spherules studied nickel was 'not detected'.
Google search results indicate that cosmic spherules (deriving mainly from meteor showers) are indeed 'widely discussed in the literature', since they were first detected in the 19th century, but much of the literature is paywalled.
Avi Loeb has blogged about further results from his team's Pacific Ocean exploration project, seeking materials from the 'first recognised interstellar meteor'. This time he excitedly reports the discovery of 'spherules'. These are very small (~0.3 mm in 'size' - presumably diameter) and consist mainly of iron with 'some magnesium and titanium but no nickel'. He declares this to be anomalous compared to man-made or known cosmic sources (oceanic sources such as deep-sea vents are not mentioned.) The blog is here:
A key question is obviously what other sources of small spherules there might be. In a quick search I found at least one accessible research paper: a study of 'Cosmic spherules from metalliferous sediments'. Quite a lot of spherules were found, and
The spherules studied ranged from about 50 to 150 micrometers in diameter, which if my calculation is correct is between 0.05 and 0.15 millimeters. This is rather smaller than the 0.3 mm mentioned by Loeb. The chemical composition of the spherules was mainly iron, but with some magnesium, titanium and many other elements. The majority contained some nickel, but where present it was usually less than 0.1 percent of the spherule by weight, and in nearly half of the spherules studied nickel was 'not detected'.
Google search results indicate that cosmic spherules (deriving mainly from meteor showers) are indeed 'widely discussed in the literature', since they were first detected in the 19th century, but much of the literature is paywalled.
Certainly interesting research by Avi and his team. Perhaps he is a bit victim to todays speed, drop it in his blog, as a precursor for a later paper? I find it a bit quick on the draw to claim "interstellar spherules", but that is not what he writes so, fine.
Google search results indicate that cosmic spherules (deriving mainly from meteor showers) are indeed 'widely discussed in the literature', since they were first detected in the 19th century, but much of the literature is paywalled.
One important aspect of the famous meta-materials delt with in the OP, as well as meta-materials that may come up in the future is their "provenance" and "provenience". That is, where they came from and where they went.
Archeologist and blogger Carl Feagans gives a good definition of these 2 words while discussing the Fuente Magna Bowl (an artifact supposedly showing Sumerian writing in ancient Peru):
What Keith found was the bowl’s pedigree. It’s provenance. The chain of custody to the earliest known person.
What he didn’t find is the bowl’s provenience. And, as a practicing, dirt-digging archaeologist, this word, similarly spelled, has similar but different meaning than the word provenance.
Provenance is a chain of custody, as with a work of art. Provenience, however, is the x-y coordinates of a find within it’s unit. The context it has with all the other artifacts and features from which it was dug. And that’s the vital thing that’s missing from the Fuente Magna Bowl.
If we apply this to the meta-materials discussed, the problems are apparent. In the case of Art's Parts, there is no known provenience and only an informal provenance.
They were mailed by an anonymous listener to Art Bell in 2 different bundles in the late '90s, the 2nd one containing the more celebrated MgBi layered piece. Or so we're told. Assuming Bell is being truthful, this is the first known time they enter the record. They have no provenience. Aside from the claim that they were collected at the Roswell crash site, there are no pictures, drawings, records or descriptions of the context in which they were discovered. They simple arrived in the mail.
While there seems to be no formal written provenance of the Parts after Bell received them in the mail, one can piece together where they went through public accounts and recordings. It seems Bell gave them to Linda Howe for analysis and she seems to have kept them occasionally showing them to people like Ancient Aliens host Georgio Tukopolis in the mid '00s or '10s. Sometime around 2019 Howe appears to have transferred/gave/sold the parts to DeLong of TTSA and he in turn sold them to TTSA. So, it's likely that what Bell got in the mail in the '90s is what TTSA ended up with in 2019. There is a provenance of sorts.
The Ubatuba UFO artifact test by Gary Nolen has a nearly identical origin story as Art's Parts, they arrived in the mail with a letter describing them as coming from a crashed UFO. So again, no known provenience. No telling where they original came from.
As for what Nolen, and others tested, that can be a problem as there is not a good provenance for the samples:
The metal appears in the columninst’s hands and from there goes to Fontes, then to Jim and Coral Lorenzen (seen below)at APRO and then to various others.
...the samples have been handled in a fairly cavalier fashion. Once they arrived in the United States, no one had kept track of them and it could be argued that the chain of custody was broken here as well. The Air Force destroyed a small sample given them for testing without obtaining any results. The Lorenzens loaned various samples and pieces of samples to any number of people and some of those samples have been lost. In the end, it might be nearly impossible to say that the samples as they exist today are in any way related to those that were first sent to APRO. Dr. Fontes died decades ago, as did the Lorenzens. That is another stumbling block.
Archeologist and blogger Carl Feagans gives a good definition of these 2 words while discussing the Fuente Magna Bowl (an artifact supposedly showing Sumerian writing in ancient Peru):
What Keith found was the bowl’s pedigree. It’s provenance. The chain of custody to the earliest known person.
What he didn’t find is the bowl’s provenience. And, as a practicing, dirt-digging archaeologist, this word, similarly spelled, has similar but different meaning than the word provenance.
Provenance is a chain of custody, as with a work of art. Provenience, however, is the x-y coordinates of a find within it’s unit. The context it has with all the other artifacts and features from which it was dug. And that’s the vital thing that’s missing from the Fuente Magna Bowl. Content from External Source https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2017/11/fuente-magna-bowl-not-cuneiform-not-sumerian/
Provenance answers the question, "who had it?"
Provenience answers the question, "where did it come from?"
In a court case, provenience might be shown via a crime scene photograph that shows the exhibit. Provenance would be shown via witnesses and a documented chain of custody that links the crime scene to the court room. It might even link the item back to the perpetrator and the place where the item was bought.
If the provenance is doubtful, you can't be sure of the provenience: is this Egyptian vase really from that tomb, or is it a cheap copy? Was Art Bell's correspondent's father ever in Roswell?
I've never heard of 'provenience' before, and it seems to be a specialist technical term in archeology. In general usage, 'provenance' would cover all aspects of 'where something comes from'. For example, in discussing a disputed 'Leonardo' ('La Bella Principessa') one might say 'It has no known provenance before the 1950s'. Meaning 'we don't know where it was (geographically), and we don't know what hands it passed through, before the 1950s'.
All hypothetical of course, but if someone came up with a piece of worked metal (or whatever) that multiple qualified laboratories and peer reviews confirmed was from a mineral not found on Earth and/or produced using an unknown manufactured process, wouldn't where it came from be of secondary significance compared to the fact it even existed?
All hypothetical of course, but if someone came up with a piece of worked metal (or whatever) that multiple qualified laboratories and peer reviews confirmed was from a mineral not found on Earth and/or produced using an unknown manufactured process, wouldn't where it came from be of secondary significance compared to the fact it even existed?
Well...if your hypothetical sample were an "unknown manufactured process", I'm sure officials would want to know if it came from China, or Russia, or North Korea, or...
All hypothetical of course, but if someone came up with a piece of worked metal (or whatever) that multiple qualified laboratories and peer reviews confirmed was from a mineral not found on Earth and/or produced using an unknown manufactured process, wouldn't where it came from be of secondary significance compared to the fact it even existed?
Maybe, but "not found on earth" can mean something that landed on earth, like a meteorite. Somewhere in the thread Tutankhamun's dagger was mentioned. It's a manufactured object "not of this earth" as it was carved from a meteorite.
Art's piece of layered MgBi seems to have been "produced using an unknown manufacturing process". This is possibly because it wasn't "manufactured", it's a piece of industrial waste or slag. While I think Lind Moulton Howe (LTH) has a propensity for hype and drama, she does offer several recorded phone calls with people at places like Dow and BASF that claim they don't know how the layered MgBi piece was made, and they don't know how to make it if they wanted to. That's likely true, as there is no purpose for the material so nobody makes it or knows how.
As I noted earlier, if this stuff floated when a sufficient current is applied as is claimed, then I'm sure Musk or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or GD or Northrup-Grummin or any other material manufactures would figure out really quick how to make it.
This a great case where, if the MgBi piece had a known provenience, it would answer a lot of questions. It'd be nice if we had a guy showing us here is a lead smelting operation and here is where the lead is pressed out of layers of Mg and Bi. The resulting pressed slag is then chlorinated to recover the Bi so it can be sold. Here is someone grabbing a piece of the pressed slag before it gets chlorinated.
And I know your talking hypothetically, but right now there is nothing close to an agreed upon peer-reviewed consensus on these current meta-materials. There is some random testing by different, and almost always pro-UFO groups resulting in "there is some strange isotopes" or "we don't know how this is made."
Well...if your hypothetical sample were an "unknown manufactured process", I'm sure officials would want to know if it came from China, or Russia, or North Korea, or...
Maybe, but "not found on earth" can mean something that landed on earth, like a meteorite. Somewhere in the thread Tutankhamun's dagger was mentioned. It's a manufactured object "not of this earth" as it was carved from a meteorite.
Art's piece of layered MgBi seems to have been "produced using an unknown manufacturing process". This is possibly because it wasn't "manufactured", it's a piece of industrial waste or slag. While I think Lind Moulton Howe (LTH) has a propensity for hype and drama, she does offer several recorded phone calls with people at places like Dow and BASF that claim they don't know how the layered MgBi piece was made, and they don't know how to make it if they wanted to. That's likely true, as there is no purpose for the material so nobody makes it or knows how.
As I noted earlier, if this stuff floated when a sufficient current is applied as is claimed, then I'm sure Musk or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or GD or Northrup-Grummin or any other material manufactures would figure out really quick how to make it.
This a great case where, if the MgBi piece had a known provenience, it would answer a lot of questions. It'd be nice if we had a guy showing us here is a lead smelting operation and here is where the lead is pressed out of layers of Mg and Bi. The resulting pressed slag is then chlorinated to recover the Bi so it can be sold. Here is someone grabbing a piece of the pressed slag before it gets chlorinated.
And I know your talking hypothetically, but right now there is nothing close to an agreed upon peer-reviewed consensus on these current meta-materials. There is some random testing by different, and almost always pro-UFO groups resulting in "there is some strange isotopes" or "we don't know how this is made."
OK, I muddied the hypothetical waters by including manufacturing processes, so let's stick with a piece of material determined to be made up of an unknown element. In my scenario, I didn't confine this to "current meta-materials," nor was I talking about "strange isotopes" of known elements. If a piece of manufactured material made up of an unknown element was discovered, where/who it came from would be secondary to its existence.
Ah, but that's the beauty of compartmentalized intelligence, remember? Not to mention the secrets of other nations. NOBODY knows everything. And saying "nobody knows" is trying to prove a negative. It can't be done.
Ah, but that's the beauty of compartmentalized intelligence, remember? Not to mention the secrets of other nations. NOBODY knows everything. And saying "nobody knows" is trying to prove a negative. It can't be done.
Why are people always looking to emulate the technology from crashed spaceships? That's like looking at OceanGate's Titan for hints on how to design DSVs.
Maybe, but "not found on earth" can mean something that landed on earth, like a meteorite. Somewhere in the thread Tutankhamun's dagger was mentioned. It's a manufactured object "not of this earth" as it was carved from a meteorite.
Art's piece of layered MgBi seems to have been "produced using an unknown manufacturing process". This is possibly because it wasn't "manufactured", it's a piece of industrial waste or slag. While I think Lind Moulton Howe (LTH) has a propensity for hype and drama, she does offer several recorded phone calls with people at places like Dow and BASF that claim they don't know how the layered MgBi piece was made, and they don't know how to make it if they wanted to. That's likely true, as there is no purpose for the material so nobody makes it or knows how.
As I noted earlier, if this stuff floated when a sufficient current is applied as is claimed, then I'm sure Musk or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or GD or Northrup-Grummin or any other material manufactures would figure out really quick how to make it.
This a great case where, if the MgBi piece had a known provenience, it would answer a lot of questions. It'd be nice if we had a guy showing us here is a lead smelting operation and here is where the lead is pressed out of layers of Mg and Bi. The resulting pressed slag is then chlorinated to recover the Bi so it can be sold. Here is someone grabbing a piece of the pressed slag before it gets chlorinated.
And I know your talking hypothetically, but right now there is nothing close to an agreed upon peer-reviewed consensus on these current meta-materials. There is some random testing by different, and almost always pro-UFO groups resulting in "there is some strange isotopes" or "we don't know how this is made."
I can imagine some serendipitous solenoidal pathways of higher conductance emerging in the multilayered structure of the material, resulting in a natural electromagnet of sorts, though the odds of that happening are probably next to zero. The simple explanation is that any conductor will produce a magnetic field when an electric current flows through it. Put that material in another magnetic field, run a current through it and voila, it moves.
INTRODUCTION
The vast majority of UFO sightings involve only witness testimony, without physical evidence that can be examined in a laboratory. However, in a very small fraction of cases, there has been material available for later analysis. These include falls of angel hair (although these often evaporate rapidly), slag-like material, powdery deposits, or physical samples that appear manufactured. The Ubatuba, Brazil, samples, the subject of this paper, fall into this latter category. Other notable examples of physical traces include those in Campinas, Brazil (1954), Vaddo, Sweden (1954), Redding, CA (1969), Delphos, Kansas (1971), and Carlisle, NY (1975).
I was unaware of the Väddö case, so I checked it out in some Swedish sources (UFO-Sverige of relatively recent movie fame, has a great article abridged from the 1998 book UFO-mysteriet - från flygande tefat till cirklar i sädesfälten by Clas Svahn, Sweden's foremost expert on UAPs, here which I will translate and quote from), and it's interesting because there are two witnesses (carpenters Stig Ekberg and Harry Sjöberg) with fairly consistent stories and they also never seem to have believed that what they saw was an extraterrestial craft, instead seemingly opted to not even think about it (or even report it to the authorities, if I had to guess I would say because they in typical Swedish fashion didn't want to "make a fuzz and/or thought they would become laughingstocks if they described their encounter) until several months later by sheer coincidence when they found themselves talking about work with a man they had just met while tending to the boat they owned together.
The tree [men] sat down in the ship's cabin for a cup of coffee. After a while the conversation turned to work and the man told them that he was studying to become a metallurgist and worked for a jeweller/goldsmith on Drottninggatan (lit. "Queen's Street", one of the largest shopping streets in Stockholm, my note).
-Then I remembered that piece of metal I had thrown into the glove compartment, says Stig. I went out to the car to check if it was still there and it was.
The man looked at it and guessed it was made from platinum and thus worth a bit of money. But he wasn't entirely sure. Instead he gave the two carpenters the address to his workplace.
The man couldn't figure out what it was though, and instead referred them to another goldsmith who couldn't figure out much either, but had contacts in Denmark, so the piece of metal was sent there with seemingly no results and finally ended up at Höganäs AB in Helsingborg, Sweden, one of the world's largest producers of powdered metals. They tried ultrasound which had the effect of breaking it into three pieces. From there one of the pieces was sent to the Copenhagen Technical College in 1958, but there seem to be no knowledge of what, if any, results they obtained through their investigation.
Somewhere between that and the conversation with the metallurgist apprentice they must have at least started to entertain the thought that what they saw might have been a UFO (in the extraterrestial sense) because the next thing that happens (according to the article) is this:
[In] 1959, through the help of ufologist Sven Schalin, Saab in Linköping examined one of the metal pieces. Schalin had been contacted by Ekberg and now he, on request from Ekberg, made an analysis. The result was: the metal piece was made from tungsten, carbon, calcium and cobalt. But Schalin wanted more opinions and sent the metal piece through a contact in Denmark to Forsvarets forskningstjeneste ("The Danish Defense Research Establishment", the then Danish equivavelent to DARPA, since merged into a larger defence agency, my note).
[...]
In october 1959 came the answer: the metal piece is a cemented carbide, tungsten carbide, which according to the defence research establishment's researchers "hardly could come from a UFO". Instead they guessed it had been part of the brake system in some sort of crane. In february 1960 it was returned to Sweden and Schalin.
Schalin didn't give up there but sent it to a Thomas Hesselmann at Sandvik (another large Swedish industrial corporation) who did an X-ray difraction analysis and got the same answer again: cemented carbide, though he guessed it came from the grinding parts of an industrial stone crusher or something similar.
Later, in 1967, Ekberg ran into UFO contactee Daniel Glantz in a used book store and through him and other ET-believing ufologists the metal pieces would go through even more tests over the years, in Sweden and abroad, and while the results invariably seemed to be the same: cemented carbide, used in some industrial process, rumours about the pieces having special "heat shielding" properties and the like would continue to be espoused by ET-believing ufologists. One piece got lost somehow, no one knows how (Ekberg claims it was taken by a US Air Force Major who Schelin brought with him during a visit to Ekberg's home, Schelin denies this ever happened).
What's most interesting to me is that Ekberg, who seems to be the one of the two witnesses who has actively taken an interest in the case and has let ufologists handle the metal piece for decades, also has maintained for all these years that the UAP probably was some kind of Soviet spycraft, considering "flying saucers" and "aliens" to be complete baloney and until Svahn let an engineer at Sandvik to a new analysis in 1998 which again confirmed the tungsten carbide identification (and could even point to an approximate date for its construction - the 1950's) no one of the ufologists seem to have relayed the results of the investigations to him.:
Today the technology is more refined and the purity [of cemented carbides] better. When we put the analysis curve from the Väddö metal next to another from a common, known cemented carbide they are identical.
-So it's settled then, states Stig Ekberg. It was just a common piece of cemented carbide. Weird that no one has told me before.
How then has it happened that a common cemented carbide has gotten the reputation of being part of a flying saucer? The answer is that the people who've been the driving forces behind the investigations of the Väddö Mmetal have all been convinced ET-believers. At least three of them also claimed to be personally in contact with extraterrestials.
Maybe the metal piece from Väddö can still lend som credibility to the carpenters' story. If it is as they both have always claimed, that a shining craft lowered itself over the road on the place where they later found the metal, it might not be that strange that the metal piece was hot after the close cotnact. It was after all a good conductor of heat.
Maybe it is exactly the heat eminating from the metal that is the real proof that an unkonwn object was there above the road that night in 1956.
To me, this is actually one of the more credible sightings I've read. Two witnesses, though even though they know each other, have been consistent in their stories, don't seem to have cared at all for being in the limelight, never believed it was something else than a Soviet contraption and who when finally told of the mundane properties of the metal piece they found, immediately accept it as the truth and probably not directly related to the UAP they saw (of course, one could consider a scenario where the UAP was carrying some kind of industrial machinery for some purpose (lifting, boring, cutting, grinding, who knows?) and that a part broke loose or something.
I'm personally sceptical of it being something from the Soviet Union, I think the Swedish Armed Forces would have been more interested in the story then. I have no good hypothesis as to what it was they actually saw but my guess is that they misidentified something mundane, maybe due to being drunk, which would also explain why they didn't go to the authorities (they didn't want to get booked for a DUI), but it's a bit weird that both of them would stick to the story if that was the case, since the statutes of limitation would've run out after just a few years if that were the case.
It's regrettable that the easily explained part of the story, the metal fragment, has become the more famous part of the case, especially since it was debunked already in the late 50's. If the ufologists (believers or not) had instead focused on the witnesses' story, we could have had a better chance of actually explaining what it was that they saw. As it is now, I doubt it will ever be "solved" in a satisfactory way.
It's regrettable that the easily explained part of the story, the metal fragment, has become the more famous part of the case, especially since it was debunked already in the late 50's.
And yet, The Journal of Scientific Exploration's Spring 2022 edition was still touting it as a trace bit of material from a UFO, or at least associated with a UFO sighting.
There is also the mention of Redding, CA(1969). That's an hour of so north of me, so I'll have to look into it.
of course, one could consider a scenario where the UAP was carrying some kind of industrial machinery for some purpose (lifting, boring, cutting, grinding, who knows?) and that a part broke loose or something
That seems like a very likely option! And it would also go some way to try and identify the UAP (if it was the UAP that left it there and not just a freak coincidence that they saw it at the exact same place that another aircraft had earlier dropped a defective brake pad).
Why are people always looking to emulate the technology from crashed spaceships? That's like looking at OceanGate's Titan for hints on how to design DSVs.
A little digging around for another thread brought up something interesting in regard to Gary Nolen's analysis of the Ubatuba sample. This is a bit of speculation I'll admit upfront, but as the information concerning Nolan's samples seems to be almost non-existent one tries for a bit of reasoned speculation.
Recall from the overly long OP (sorry), Nolen claimed to have a possible piece of meta-material from a UFO that supposedly crashed in the Brazilian village of Ubatuba:
One of the materials from the so called Ubatuba event [a UAP event in Brazil], has extraordinarily altered isotope ratios of magnesium. It was interesting because another piece from the same event was analyzed in the same instrument at the same time. This is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument called a nanoSIMS - Secondary Ion Mass Spec. It had perfectly correct isotope ratios for what you would expect for magnesium found anywhere on Earth. Meanwhile, the other one was just way off. Like 30 percent off the ratios. The problem is there's no good reason humans have for altering the isotope ratios of a simple metal like magnesium. There's no different properties of the different isotopes, that anybody, at least in any of the literature that is public of the hundreds of thousands of papers published, that says this is why you would do that. Now you can do it. It's a little expensive to do, but you'd have no reason for doing it.
Nolen's claim is that there were 2 sample of magnesium, one was "normal" but the other one had strange isotopes.
I'm no chemist, but isotopes are pretty easy to understand. For those that do, just skip ahead or feel free to correct me as needed here. Each element is made up of atoms. Atoms have + charged protons and non-charged neutrons bonded together in a nucleus with - charged electrons orbiting the nucleus, usually simplified into a diagram like this:
An elements atomic number and place on the periodic table is determined by the number of electrons and protons in the atom. They are always the same, so in the periodic table below, Oxygen is used as an example for reading the table. Oxygen's atomic number is 8, so it has 8 protons and 8 electrons. Atoms usually have a similar number of neutrons, but not always. When an atom has a different number of neutrons from its atomic number, it's called an isotope.
Some isotopes are stable, that is they stay the way they are, and some are unstable, meaning they decay or give up neutrons until they have a stable amount of them. One of the well-known uses of this is in Carbon 14 dating.
On the periodic table above Carbon is C and has an atomic number of 6, so it has 6 electrons and 6 protons. It also has a number of stable isotopes including Carbon 12, that has 12 neutrons in its nucleus. Carbon 14, with 14 neutrons is radioactive, that is it decays or gives up neutrons until it has 12 and becomes stable. The known time that this takes is used in dating, which I'm not going to get into here.
Magnesium has an atomic number of 12 and is Mg on the periodic table. The interview with Nolen doesn't specify which isotopes of Mg were normal and which were unusual, just that some were.
Also in the interview, Nolen never says were he got the samples, so bear with me here as I try to create a hypothetical provenance for the Ubatuba samples he was testing.
In 2001 Peter Sturrock of Stanford University, the same Stanford that Nolen is at, conducted yet another analysis of the Ubatuba samples, and gives a history of them and how he got them in a paper he wrote for The Journal of Scientific Exploration a somewhat fringy journal that is claimed to be peer reviewed. External content below from here unless noted otherwise:
To start with, the samples first show up in Brazil. After they were sent the newspaper gossip columnist Sued, he gave them to a Dr. Fontes:
Fontes received from Sued three specimens that he refers to as “Samples 1, 2 and 3.” Photographs of Samples 2 and 3 are reproduced as figure 1 of Fontes (1962). Their lengths were about 1/4 inch and 3/4 inch, respectively. Sample 1 was never photographed.
Then bits and pieces were giving to various Brazilian groups with Fontes keeping some of them:
Sample 1 was then divided into several pieces. Two were left with the laboratory, and Fontes retained the rest (together with Samples 2 and 3).
On November 4, 1957, Fontes gave one of the remaining pieces of Sample 1 to Major Roberto Caminha of the Brazilian Army, who had the specimen analyzed at the Military Institute of Technology
Then the samples were transferred to Coral Lorenzens and her husband, the founders and heads of APRO, a civilian UFO group similar to NICAP and MUFON:
In late 1957, Fontes conveyed the remaining piece of Sample 1, and also Samples 2 and 3, to the Lorenzens at APRO.
In 1967 the Lorenzens gave some of the samples to the Condon group which gave them to Craig:
In 1967, the Lorenzens contacted Dr. Edward U. Condon, who was serving as director of the Colorado Project, to examine UFO evidence under contract with the U.S. Air Force. Analysis of the Brazil magnesium specimen was assigned to Dr. Roy Craig, who has given a narrative account of his experiences with the Colorado Project (Craig, 1995). The results of his investigations into the Brazil magnesium are summarized in the Condon Report (Condon & Gillmor, 1969, pp. 94–97).
Craig had it tested, which we'll come back to below:
Craig was advised that the most sensitive test for impurities would be neutron activation analysis. He therefore arranged to take a specimen of the Brazil magnesium and (for comparison) a specimen of the Dow triply sublimed magnesium to the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) Laboratory in Washington, D.C. This visit took place on February 5, 1968, and the specimen was analyzed by Mr. Maynard J. Pro, whose report on the analysis was mailed to Craig on February 29, 1968.
Without getting too into the weeds, Sturrock got some of the samples and had them tested showing nothing unusual about their isotopic ratios:
With the kind cooperation of the Lorenzens, I was able to arrange for some analyses in California.
I was able to arrange for an isotopic analysis to be carried out at the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
They were able to determine that, with an accuracy of 0.04% (400 ppm), there is no significant difference between the isotopic composition of the specimen I had provided and that of normal terrestrial magnesium that had been subjected to normal fractionation processes such as sublimation.
Sturrock ended up with most of the samples by the late '80s:
The Lorenzens kindly transferred ownership of the remaining specimens to me in 1987. It should be noted that, by that time, the association of the remaining specimens with the original three specimens had been completely lost. The specimens had not been carefully protected and tracked. In my discussions with the Lorenzens, I learned that two specimens were out on loan. One was in the possession of Mr. Robert Achzehnov of Costa Mesa, California; I subsequently retrieved this specimen from Mr. Achzehnov in 1986. The other has a more interesting history.
The more interesting sample had been the one tested by Roy Craig and ended up with someone else having been loaned out by the Lorenzens, inferring that Craig returned the sample to them. This is the one we're interested in and I'll call it the Craig sample going forward:
Mr. Harold Lebelson, a journalist, had expressed an interest in the Brazil magnesium in 1978. As a result, a specimen (the same specimen that had been analyzed by the Colorado Project) was given into his care by the Lorenzens.
He took this specimen to Professor Robert E. Ogilvie of the Metallurgy Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He does some testing, and Ogilvie thought it maybe came from a "weld material" or a piece of welded Mg, such as might be in a jet or maybe early rockets attempting Earth orbit. Not a UFO. But then some nefarious guy took the sample:
However, on telephoning him, I was dismayed to learn that he no longer had the specimen. According to Ogilvie, Lebelson had telephoned him in 1984 and advised him that someone would visit Ogilvie on Lebelson’s behalf to retrieve the specimen. Soon thereafter, a gentleman turned up at Ogilvie’s laboratory and took possession of the magnesium. Ogilvie did not recall the person’s name, did not check his credentials, and did not ask for a receipt. All that Ogilvie could remember about the visitor was that he said he was from the IBM plant in Fishkill, New York.
So, the Craig sample disappeared. However, Sturrock also points out that the Lorenzens didn't keep very good records of the samples:
Unfortunately, the Lorenzens did not keep a careful log of the specimens, so it is not possible at this time to identify that piece, or even to be sure that it is still part of the remaining specimens.
3 Since there had been no systematic tracking of specimens in the APRO files, it was convenient to adopt a new system of coding the various specimens when they were transferred from APRO to Stanford University. Specimens received from APRO were numbered SU-A, SU-B, etc. If a specimen was subdivided, its parts were coded SU-Ia, SU-Ib, etc.
Roy Craig was working for what's commonly called The Condon Committe in the '60s, as noted above, when he got a piece of the Ubatuba material from the Lorenzens. Some UFOlogist make a point of this, saying something like "the Ubatuba event must have been real because the US government looked into the material from it", as if testing the material was an endorsement of its origin. Never mind that the test didn't show much unusual.
Craig decided to use Neutron Activation analysis on a small piece of the sample, as Sturrock had said:
is the nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on atomic nuclei. The method is based on neutron activation and thus requires a source of neutrons. The sample is bombarded with neutrons, causing its constituent elements to form radioactive isotopes.
To carry out an NAA analysis, the specimen is placed into a suitable irradiation facility and bombarded with neutrons. This creates artificial radioisotopes of the elements present.
And back then in the '50s and '60s the important point about the Ubatuba material was that its composition was very pure Mg and could not have been manufactured in '57. It's only since the '60s and into the '90s, after repeated analysis of the material has concluded otherwise, that the goal posts have been moved. Now it's not the purity of the material, but the strange isotopic ratios.
But what if the sample with the strange isotopic ratios is in fact the long lost Craig sample? The one that had been irradiated to create new and different isotopes?
I can't find any documents or statements from Nolan saying where he got the samples he tested. One assumes they are in the collection that Sturrock obtained from the Lorenzens and was kept at Stanford. None of Sturrock's analysis of the samples ever came up with unusual isotopic ratios, only Nolan's did. Or at least that's what he claims. Did a little piece of the Craig sample end up in the Stanford collection and was just never tested for isotopes? I don't know.
For a given element with a number of protons Z, an isotope is any atom which contains Z protons and whatever number of neutrons. They are all isotopes, including when the number of neutrons is equal to the atomic number.
On the periodic table above Carbon is C and has an atomic number of 6, so it has 6 electrons and 6 protons. It also has a number of stable isotopes including Carbon 12, that has 12 neutrons in its nucleus. Carbon 14, with 14 neutrons is radioactive, that is it decays or gives up neutrons until it has 12 and becomes stable. The known time that this takes is used in dating, which I'm not going to get into here.
C-14 decays by emitting an electron and a neutron transforming into a proton, but it remains in the nucleus, so the result is Nitrogen-14 (7 protons, 7 neutrons) which is stable.
Light elements tend to have the same number of protons than neutrons, but for heavier elements, they tend to have more neutrons than protons (for example: Potassium K-39 is the stable istope: 19 protons, 20 neutrons; Uranium, U-238: 92 protons, 146 neutrons)
And back then in the '50s and '60s the important point about the Ubatuba material was that its composition was very pure Mg and could not have been manufactured in '57. It's only since the '60s and into the '90s, after repeated analysis of the material has concluded otherwise, that the goal posts have been moved. Now it's not the purity of the material, but the strange isotopic ratios.
But what if the sample with the strange isotopic ratios is in fact the long lost Craig sample? The one that had been irradiated to create new and different isotopes?
Interesting possibility. When we combine the fact that (1) Ubatuba was the site of both a meteor strike and a plane crash and we don't know which was the source of the samples,
Inquiries in the Ubatuba area have yielded evidence of three aerial events that may be related to an unusual magnesium specimen, which is usually attributed to an event in or near Ubatuba, an analysis of which has been published in this journal. There is undisputed evidence that an aircraft crashed in that area in April 1957. There is strong evidence that a meteorite, or an object resembling a meteorite, crashed or exploded in the area in the early 1930's, and that a piece of strange light-weight material was caught in a fishing net at about that time. There is weaker evidence (mainly from one witness) that a very large object disintegrated, with a silent explosion, near Ubatuba in or about 1957. There is some evidence that, in or about 1957, one or more metal specimens were brought for analysis to an Air Force research center near S¼o Paulo and found to be magnesium.
(2) the convoluted and opaque chain of custody you've outlined, and (3) the possibility that an already-altered sample was analyzed, I think there is no reason to consider that those particular samples provide any reliable evidence at all.
The aerospace industry has a long history of using the metal in many applications both civil and military. It is critical to lower the weight of air and space craft [..]. Magnesium can be found in the thrust reversers for the Boeing 737, 747, 757, and 767 as well as in jet engine fan frames, and aircraft and helicopter transmission casings. [..] Spacecraft and missiles also contain magnesium and its alloys.
Depending on the type of aircraft that crashed, it might be possible to research whether it incorporated magnesium. And of course magnesium objects may have been among its cargo.
For a given element with a number of protons Z, an isotope is any atom which contains Z protons and whatever number of neutrons. They are all isotopes, including when the number of neutrons is equal to the atomic number.
Thanks for the clarification, as I said, I'm no chemist. My younger son is but didn't want to bother him. Hopefully I was able to get across the basic principal of an isotope. It's the number of neutrons.
Depending on the type of aircraft that crashed, it might be possible to research whether it incorporated magnesium. And of course magnesium objects may have been among its cargo.
Jorge de Jesus said that the only event in 1957 of which he had heard
was an aircraft crash. Around sunset (6:15 pm), on April 10, 1957, a Real-
Aerovias DC-3 airplane had crashed into a hill on Anchieta Island, about 3 km
from the sea. This event was reported widely and in detail in the Brazilian press.
Narrative:
The DC-3 was flying near Ubatuba when a no. 2 engine fire forced the crew to make an emergency descent for Ubatuba. Due to slight rain, the crew noticed Papagaio Peak (on Anchieta Island) when it was too late. The aircraft stalled during the evasive manoeuvre and crashed into the mountain.
But I can't seem to find anything indicating magnesium was used on the DC3 or its engines.
EDIT: Wait a tic, here is some info on one of engines used on a DC3S, a Pratt and Whitny Twin Wasp D, which had a magnesium parts:
The crankcase is made up if seven sections. Three parts comprise the power section, and are machined together from aluminum forgings. The magnesium nose section houses reduction gears and has provision for the Hamilton Standard Hydromatic or other full feathering propellers. The power section elements are joined by through bolts. The magnesium blower section, bolted to the power section, contains the supercharger supports the downdraft carburetor and houses the impeller gear train. The accessory section, also of magnesium, is fastened to the blower intermediate section by means of stud bolts,
Unfortunately, only a few DC3S were built and the plane that crashed had P&W R-1830 engines, which the same site describes as being all aluminum casings:
The power section parts are forged from aluminum and machined together. The nose section houses reduction gears and, in geared versions, has provision for a Hamilton Standard hydromatic full feathering or other controllable propeller. A drilled oil passage in upper part of nose section provides a means for operating the propeller pitch control. The power sections are joined by through bolts. The blower section is bolted to the power section, contains the supercharger and carries bronze-bushed, forged-steel engine mount lugs. The blower intermediate section is bolted to the blower section,
Thanks for the clarification, as I said, I'm no chemist. My younger son is but didn't want to bother him. Hopefully I was able to get across the basic principal of an isotope. It's the number of neutrons.
Nope, it's the number of protons. All atoms with the same number of protons have similar chemical properties, and that determines their place in the periodic table of elements. "Isotope" is simply Greek for "same place", so all atoms linked to the same place on the periodic table are isotopes of each other.
(I did not refer to the number of electrons because atoms can have more or less electrons than protons, which makes them ions. Atoms with the same number of protons and electrons are not electrically charged and not called ions.)
Discussions as to Nolan‘s activities and statements. … I think I posted something … but he never seemed to be a big issue here. I keep wondering about some US scientists and how they interpret their role.
She's actually a C-47, not a DC-3, but the planes were used interchangeably so she's considered a DC-3, said Mike Orford, who informed the airshow committee about Dixie's imminent sale a month ago.
Built in either 1943 or 1944, the plane flew in the South Pacific with Col. Pappy, Boyington of the Black Sheep Squadron during the war, according to Orford.
[...]
After refueling in Petersburg, the crew of two ran into trouble before reaching cruising altitude. Instead of turning back and risking a collision with the mountainous terrain that guards the Wrangell Narrows, the pilot decided to ditch the plane in the water.
[...]
The nose of the plane was severely damaged and embedded with mud and clams from her encounter with the Narrows' floor. But the real obstacle to restoration was the deterioration of magnesium parts in the engines and landing gear as current flowed through the sunken plane, said Triem.
Nope, it's the number of protons. All atoms with the same number of protons have similar chemical properties, and that determines their place in the periodic table of elements. "Isotope" is simply Greek for "same place", so all atoms linked to the same place on the periodic table are isotopes of each other.
(I did not refer to the number of electrons because atoms can have more or less electrons than protons, which makes them ions. Atoms with the same number of protons and electrons are not electrically charged and not called ions.)
Yes, I skipped ions. I was thinking the way these guys are talking about isotopic ratios. Here is Sturrock talking about a test he had done comparing the Ubatuba sample (SU-A) to a control piece of Mg from Dow:
The measured isotopic ratio for Dow CP is very close to that expected of normal terrestrial magnesium, for which 25Mg/24Mg = 0.127 and 26Mg/24Mg = 0.139. The solid line in Figure 1 is the track to be expected if fractionation occurs due to heating. We see that all specimens lie on that track.
We see that the Brazil specimen SU-A is the furthest from normal composition. However, it is on the same track as the other specimens. One may therefore infer that a specimen with the same isotopic composition as SU-A could be produced from normal magnesium by multiple sublimation. Hence this analysis does not point toward a non-terrestrial origin for the specimen SU-A.
I got that he is talking about the different isotopes of Mg such as 24Mg, 25Mg and 26Mg. That is, Mg atoms with 24, 25 and 26 neutrons in the nucleus respectively. All the Mg atoms would have 12 protons.
Sturrock's paper is saying that a ratio of 0.127 of Mg atoms with 25 neutrons to atoms of Mg with 24 neutrons and a ratio of 0.139 of Mg atoms with 26 neutrons to Mg atoms with 24 neutrons is normal. It's all about the amount of neutrons. Right? Or am I missing something?
Nolan seems to be saying in one of his samples the ratio is unusual or that there is atoms of Mg with unusual numbers of neutrons. I think.
Isotopes have the same number of protons, but can differ in the number of neutrons. This affects their weight, and thus the density of the material, and that affects how easily the various isotopes evaporate and sublimate. (That's why sea water has more "heavy" Oxygen18.)
We group isotopes by the number of protons.
We differentiate isotopes in a group by the number of neutrons.
She's actually a C-47, not a DC-3, but the planes were used interchangeably so she's considered a DC-3, said Mike Orford, who informed the airshow committee about Dixie's imminent sale a month ago.
Built in either 1943 or 1944, the plane flew in the South Pacific with Col. Pappy, Boyington of the Black Sheep Squadron during the war, according to Orford.
[...]
After refueling in Petersburg, the crew of two ran into trouble before reaching cruising altitude. Instead of turning back and risking a collision with the mountainous terrain that guards the Wrangell Narrows, the pilot decided to ditch the plane in the water.
[...]
The nose of the plane was severely damaged and embedded with mud and clams from her encounter with the Narrows' floor. But the real obstacle to restoration was the deterioration of magnesium parts in the engines and landing gear as current flowed through the sunken plane, said Triem.
Nice find! I was busy reading through how various P&W engines were built. What's interesting is it's a logical thought. We have a piece of Mg supposedly form Ubatuba in 1957 and we have a known plane crash in the same area and time. Yet, Sturrock nor any of the other researchers that I can find ever consider the plane a possible source for the Mg. They're too busy looking for UFOs.
And saying "nobody knows" is trying to prove a negative. It can't be done.
