Monday, September 17, 2018
The problem of UFO artefacts, Part 1
Recently, ufology has been abuzz with vitriolic discussions – no, more like arguments – regarding the acquisition and testing of materials thought to be from alien spacecraft. There are many insinuated semantics that cloud the issue, because some advocates insist they “never mentioned aliens.” The reality is that the connection between anomalous artefacts and UFOs is explicitly stated in some cases and implied in others.
In July 2018, for example, the much-celebrated To The
Stars Academy (TTSA) announced that it was creating the ADAM (Acquisition & Data Analysis of Materials) Research Project, “an Academic Research Program
Focused on Exotic Materials for Technology Innovation.” As TTSA explained: “From
time to time, various sources have collected material samples reported to have
come from advanced aerospace vehicles of unknown origin (popularly known as UAP
– Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - or UFOs.)”
The ADAM project has the admirable goal of studying
artefacts from UFOs:
“Given the potential
significance of such findings, To The Stars Academy has made it a Tier-1
priority to use its resources to subject these materials to detailed and
rigorous scientific evaluation whenever feasible. As soon as TTS Academy is
notified that materials are available, a thorough effort will be made to
document their origin and credibility, followed by the establishment of
chain-of-custody procedures and ownership protocols. In addition to reviewing
the materials for their potential significance as evidence of exotic origin,
the analysis will evaluate materials for such characteristics as exceptional
strength, lightweight build and any unusual advanced properties that
potentially could contribute to the development of exciting new technologies in
the future.”
And:
TTS Academy's ADAM Research
Project… focuses on the collection and scientific evaluation of material
samples obtained through reliable reports of advanced aerospace vehicles of
unknown origin.
This sounds great! Finally, some tangible evidence from
UFOs will be studied by reputable scientists in laboratories, and finally prove
that aliens are visiting Earth.
Except, do such artefacts really exist?
Suspected UFO artefacts
A number of ufologists have presented details of known
artefacts from UFOs, showing that materials suspected as being made elsewhere
than Earth have been known for many years. Jacques Vallee, for example, has
presented a list of such objects in his lectures.
His list includes “15 known cases,” only four of which are
associated with samples that could be tested in a laboratory. One of these is the set of Ubatuba fragments
from 1957 that tests have shown to be very pure magnesium with various other
trace elements. One slight problem, which flies completely against the TTSA
mandate about chain-of-custody protocols, is that no one really knows the
provenance of the Ubatuba fragments. There are no known witnesses to the UFO
that dropped them. The actual date of the UFO event is not known, although
Vallee gives a date of September 7, 1957. One of the Ubatuba fragments was said
to have been from a separate UFO event in 1954. (See, e.g. http://www.ufoevidence.org/Cases/CaseSubarticle.asp?ID=835)
Nevertheless, the goal of the TTSA is to study and
analyse UFO artefacts, so the Ubatuba fragments appear to qualify.
Of course, the pieces had already been analysed by a
number of labs, one of which was under the purview of no less than the Condon
Committee itself. But they didn’t find the samples mysterious.
Ufologist Nick Redfern wrote recently:
There is another important
issue, too, which definitely needs addressing. As ufologist Kevin Randle notes:
“…the magnesium samples that allegedly came from an exploding UFO cannot be
traced to the beach in Brazil where they were recovered. Instead, they can be
traced to the columnist in Brazil who first reported the case in the newspaper
and that alerted Dr. Olavo Fontes…the APRO Brazilian representative to the
crash. No one has ever come forward, nor has anyone been located, who can
corroborate the tale told in the letter to the columnist nor who actually saw
the explosion or the UFO.”
In other words, we actually
have no proof at all that anything exploded over Ubatuba, back in 1957. We have
the words of an anonymous source that no-one ever located. And, we have
evidence that the sample was something that could clearly be found right here
on Earth. Should we dismiss this strange and enduring saga? Probably, yes.
Randle and Redfern don’t seem to think that Ubatuba is a
case of an alleged alien artefact.
UFO commentator Red Pill Junkie noted, referring to Peter
Sturrock:
In the case of the Ubatuba
samples, the researchers found they were composed of magnesium of a very high
level of purity, which made them unusual… but not necessarily compelling if
what you were looking for was a novel chemical element – i.e. something not of
this Earth – which would prove your case that UFOs are interplanetary craft.
Eventually both the UFO buffs and the skeptics forgot about the ejecta
material, which remained hidden in the drawers or cabinets of the still-puzzled
witnesses.
Okay, then, what about other cases?
In an interview published in The Daily Grail, Vallee described the process of analysing UFO
fragments:
The kind of spectrometer
equipment Prof. Sturrock used in his analysis is very expensive and are under
constant use by university researchers. What Dr. Vallee has been quietly doing
instead is gathering samples provided to him from less publicized UFO cases,
and go to his associates in Silicon Valley where they have newer spectrometers
that are smaller and more affordable.
“We found something very
curious,” he told us. When analyzing the isotope ratios of these mineral
samples, they discovered they neither conformed to the expected terrestrial
ratios, nor to the extraterrestrial ones exhibited by meteoric objects. In
other words, it almost seemed as if the isotopes had been reengineered, by
separating them and giving them an exotic ratio only to reintroduce them into
the metal alloy for some unknown reason.
This would be remarkable to say the least, but Vallee
cautions: “The implications of this finding, if successfully confirmed by him
and other researchers – and he reminds us they are not ready to publish their
results yet – are staggering.”
Another TTSA scientist, Garry Nolan, has said that some
of the retrieved UFO materials are very strange indeed:
These are not your grandma's
alloys. If these materials truly exist - they are going to be found to be
metamaterials. Though I call them metamaterials - it's really for lack of a
better term. They are probably even more engineered and subtle than that. The
science of metamaterials is only a few decades old, but there is a whole
ecosystem of new journals growing up around their unexpected and wondrous
properties. One way to think about metamaterials is that is, basically, quantum
engineering—working with “normal” matter in a way that takes advantage of
properties we don’t fully appreciate yet. We draw the physical universe with
only 80 elements. I would guess—just hypothesis - that “they” (an advanced
civilization) that we might infer can accomplish some of the feats observed by
the pilots understand the subtleties of isotopes and design with all 253 stable
isotopes. The metamaterials “they” could design would be more subtle and likely
encompass a greater understanding of reality and physics than we know now.
The admirable goals of the ADAM Project under the TTSA’s
oversight seem pretty good. But within ufology, there are debates as to whether
the tested materials are really getting looked at subjectively. The provenance
of some of the artefacts is problematic at best. There are concerns that scientists doing the testing might have a pro-alien bias, and that their objectivity could be in question.
Even that article just talks
about metamaterials in a general sense and just describes the concepts without
being specific about the materials they supposedly found and are supposedly
hidden somewhere…. Seriously, I sense bullshit.
Debunker Jason Colavito says this about the TTSA artefact
studies:
Puthoff talks about the
allegations that so-called “meta-metals” have been recovered that were beyond
human technology. “I’d love to talk about really fancy materials, but they’re
classified,” he said. Oh, but of course. The existence of non-human spacecraft
isn’t a secret, but the fact that they are made of fancy metals is both a
secret and one that can be openly admitted in public so long as he doesn’t
provide any details at all. That’s some very selective classification.
Quite frankly, it all boils down to whom you want to
believe.
Another recent article, in the decidedly mainstream
science publication Scientific American,
looked at the furore over alien artefacts and went to the extraordinary length
of interviewing actual metallurgists. The author had the audacity to question
why detailed information on the chemical composition of the artefacts.
One of the authors of the Times report, Ralph Blumenthal, had this
to say on MSNBC about the alloys: “They have, as we reported in the paper, some
material from these objects that is being studied so that scientists can find
what accounts for their amazing properties, this technology of these objects,
whatever they are.” When asked what the materials were, Blumenthal responded, “They
don't know. They're studying it, but it's some kind of compound that they don't
recognize.”
Here's the thing, though: The
chemists and metallurgists Live Science
spoke to - experts in identifying unusual alloys - don't buy it.
“There are databases of all
known phases [of metal], including alloys,” May Nyman, a professor in the
Oregon State University Department of Chemistry, told Live Science. Those
databases include straightforward techniques for identifying metal alloys.
If an unknown alloy appeared,
Nyman said it would be relatively simple to figure out what it was made of.
For crystalline alloys - those
in which the mixture of atoms forms an ordered structure - researchers use a
technique called X-ray diffraction, Nyman said.
“The X-ray's wavelength is
about the same size as the distance between the atoms [of crystalline alloys],”
Nyman said, “so that means when the X-rays go into a well-ordered material,
they diffract [change shape and intensity] - and from that diffraction [pattern]
you can get information that tells you the distance between the atoms, what the
atoms are, and how well-ordered the atoms are. It tells you all about the
arrangement of your atoms.”
With noncrystalline, amorphous
alloys, the process is a bit different, but not by much.
“These are all very standard
techniques in research labs, so if we had such mysterious metals, you could
take it to any university where research is done, and they could tell you what
are the elements and something about the crystalline phase within a few hours,”
Nyman said.
What we keep hearing from the private labs testing the
materials is that details can’t be released yet because of one reason or
another. They want to publish the material, but in their own time.
Unfortunately, this coyness has resulted in increasing
suspicion among both debunkers and pro-ufology pundits who find the whole thing
rather curious. The slow release (or non-release) of good information about the
alien artefacts is causing more disruption than positive expectation, except for
some hardcore zealots who are completely devoted to the TTSA. The questioning
of their method and plan is being frowned about, and there are many who urge
impatient ufologists to “give TTSA a chance, because they must know what they
are doing.”
The same old grind?
One of the alien artefacts being hotly debated is Bob
White’s piece of feathered material that he picked up following his UFO
sighting in 1985, near Grand Junction, Colorado, only about 100 miles away from
(where else?) the infamous Skinwalker Ranch.
According to White’s account, he and a companion were
driving late at night and had seen an odd light in the sky that seemed to be
approaching their car.
We were a few hundred yards
from it, when I reached over and shut off the lights on the car. It was a very
clear night and there were no other cars on the highway, so it was not
dangerous to do so. When we were a few hundred yards from it, I turned off the
ignition and we coasted up close to it. It turned out to be on the left side of
the highway instead of the right side. It was huge, the size of a very big
barn…
I got out of the car on the
passenger side and stepped in front of the car for a better look at this thing.
For some unknown reason, Jan turned on the headlights, and this light went up
in the sky as fast as my eyes could follow it. When it reached a great height,
it either changed shape or connected to another light, which looked like two
long, blue, tubular, neon lights, one on top of the other with a space in
between them. Then I saw another small light, bright orange with a tinge of
yellow, white, and blue falling from it. For a minute I thought it was the same
light coming back down. It came back down almost to where it started from.
White and his companion thought that whatever had emerged
from the object had impacted the ground.
I did not see it hit the
ground, because where I was standing there was a small incline. I climbed the
incline and went over to where I thought it might have hit. I found a groove in
the ground about 18 inches deep and 9 inches wide. I followed the groove and
there it lay. I watched it for a while and it was still glowing. I walked back
to the car, took the keys from the ignition, and opened the trunk to look for some
gloves. There was one brown cotton glove. I went back to the object and it was
no longer glowing. I ran my hand over it and since I didn't feel any heat, I
picked it up with the glove, carried it back to the car, and put it in the
trunk.
White was quick to latch on to the ETH as an explanation.
I have been told by Dr.
Reiswick from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Materials, Science and Technology
Division, who did the analyzation on it, this object is definitely
extra-terrestrial.
The piece of metal is about eight inches in length and
looks like a large, silver, “scaly” carrot.
It’s been looked at several times by various labs, but
White has been very outspoken against those who say that it’s just a byproduct
of metal grinding. His supporters, however, insist that it’s not of this Earth.
His proponents insist:
“This isn’t the smoking
gun—this is the bullet!!!!”
Debunkers had a less enthusiastic response:
Production budgets of shows
like the History Channel’s UFO Hunters,
Unsolved Mysteries, and Jane Goldman Investigates (a series
produced in the UK) allowed him to present the object to scientists for
testing, with mixed results. While it was easily established to be made of
aluminum, it had no apparent working parts. UFO enthusiasts focused on proving
its extraterrestrial origin by suggesting the composition of the metal matched
nothing on earth. They compared isotope ratios in the object to those of
meteors, tried to establish that it emitted unusual radioactivity, or focused
on inclusions and trace elements in the metal. No one seemed to wonder why a
supposedly sophisticated piece of alien technology looked like it had been
unceremoniously hacked off at one end.
The object in question is made
of accreted grinding residue. It forms in a manner similar to a common stalagmite
when metal castings are “cleaned” on large stationary grinders.
Not many large stalagmites
exist as souvenirs anymore because the metal is now so valuable that it is
collected and sold for scrap. There is also a concerted effort to keep the
grinding guards clean and remove the stalagmites before they grow so large that
they break off and destroy the grinder by becoming jammed between the guard and
wheel. It is possible that Bob White’s artifact was not identified sooner
because few old foundries remain which use the antiquated grinding equipment
that produces them. Foundry work in the U.S. has been steadily outsourced to
developing nations such as Mexico, China, and India.
White was so convinced that his alien artefact was legit
that he gave the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) a small piece
of it to test. After all, it was their mandate to look at possible alien
evidence, and this should have been a slam dunk.
But alas, this was not to be. NIDS said it was
terrestrial.
Results from the analysis of
sample #2 are quite conclusive. The specimen is an aluminum-silicon alloy, with
a substantial amount of variety of impurities, including iron, calcium, sulfur,
chlorine, sodium, magnesium and others. The composition is one that could be
used as an aluminum casting alloy… There are no anomalies in the results of
this analysis.
White didn’t take that sitting down.
OPEN LETTER TO
"NIDS"
National Institute for
Discovery Science
FROM BOB WHITE.
Why is it so important for
NIDS to debunk what is the smoking gun?
What is their agenda? Why are
they so eager to debunk me on and inaccurate analasis? If they are not
government funded debunkers shouldn't they want the truth? First person i dealt
with at NIDS was Mr. Pete McDuff who tried to discourage me. So he was replaced
by Col. John Alexander (retired) who also tried to discourage me but failed. Now
Col. Alexander is replaced by Dr. Colm Kelleher who is trying to discourage me
but will also fail. No one can discourage the truth.
On his website, he posited some alternative view to that
of NIDS:
When Bob White found an object
ejected from a UFO he recovered hard evidence of the existence of
non-conventional aerial craft.
The object is a metal glob
with an appearance of metal that was previously liquid and solidified as it
cooled and fell to the ground.
Laboratory analysis has shown
the object to be mostly aluminum but with unusual characteristics. The object
also was reported to emit energy that intereferred with electronics.
However, the object has not
been shown to be extraterrestrial nor has it been proven to be a from an alien
space ship. It could be from a US military ship.
Nazi scientists brought to the
US under Operation Paperclip and other secret programs continued their research
on advanced aircraft and propulsion systems. One of those propulsion systems
used liquid metal. Former US military intelligence officer John Alexander has
privately claimed that US flying saucers use liquid metal as part of their
propulsion system.
It is possible that Bob was
the unwitting victim of a disinformation campaign designed to encourage belief
in alien visitors.
The bottom line is that advocates of alien artefacts
insist that such materials are bona fide
and that any tests suggesting they are not are either in error or are
misrepresenting the facts. And anyone who asks questions or doubts them are, therefore,
debunkers. (And in the case of Bob White, such actions are proof of cover-up.)
Labels: artefact, artifact, Canada, metal, Ottawa, Roswell, Ubatuba, UFO
# posted by rutkows @ 1:31 PM 
