Condon and Craig
The May 23, 1967, issue of the Christian Science Monitor included an article by noted UFO
proponent Dr. J. Allen Hynek, titled, “A White Paper on UFOs.” In the article,
Hynek described how the Condon Committee was dealing with the problem of not
having any physical evidence of UFOs to which they could apply scientific
rigour. He noted: “The only UFO ‘hardware’ so far consists of patent hoaxes. If
there were only some ‘hardware’ to study, how simple matters would be! Hundreds
of laboratory tests could be run and the exact physical nature of the UFO could
be established.” (Topside, Number
24-25, Spring & Summer, 1967, pp. 10-11)
(Yes, that was written more than 50 years ago. It’s
fascinating that in 2018, ufology has finally caught up to Hynek’s
ruminations.)
Well, that made the Ottawa club members sit up straight.
They actually had a chunk of UFO hardware, so the Condon Committee should take
a look at it! On June 21, 1967, Halford-Watkins wrote to Dr. Edward Condon at
the University of Colorado, describing the chunk of metal and sending along a
copy of the 1966 Topside article
about it.
Halford-Watkins noted:
If the Colorado group of
scientists decide to accept this offer, we shall await in due course and with a
great deal of interest, a report on their findings. We sincerely hope that it
will be a factual and truthful one, with nothing concealed – but how can we
ever be sure of this?
Topside, Number 24-25, Spring & Summer, 1967, pp. 10-11
Alas, Condon didn’t reply, so on September 11, 1967,
Halford-Watkins again wrote him, this time with registered mail. Immediately,
Condon’s secretary responded, explaining that the Ottawa club’s offer had been
punted to Roy Craig, a physicist at the University of Colorado and the
project’s chief field investigator, but a committed debunker.
Craig answered Halford-Watkins on September 29, 1967,
giving them the bad news:
Your letter to Dr. Condon
written on June 21, 1967, recently came to my attention. The piece of metallic
material you mentioned, since it cannot be related directly to an unidentified
flying object, would not seem of sufficient value to our study to warrant
further analysis by us.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, p. 4
Craig recognized the lack of good provenance of the metal
chunk, and therefore didn’t see much sense in wasting his time with it.
Besides, it is known that during mid-1967, Craig was greatly involved in an
investigation of the noted Falcon Lake UFO case in Manitoba, and had spent some
time hiking through the forest in search of that site.
Of course, this smacked of conspiracy, according to
Halford-Watkins:
This cursory brush-off was not
entirely unexpected, as by this time we had gained the distinct impression from
colleagues in the U.S. and elsewhere, that the Colorado project was not an
all-out effort to solve the UFO mystery and was likely to be over-shadowed by
USAF policy.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, p. 4
That wasn’t the last word on Condon, however. In June
1968, Halford-Watkins received a, “Express air mail” letter from Roy Craig,
noting that he was going to be in Ottawa the following day, and “would like to
take the opportunity of examining the chunk of hardware on site, and at the
same time to take photographs and samples of the metal.”
She noted:
…we welcomed the opportunity
to play our part in assisting the Colorado investigation and duly arranged for
[Craig] to be driven out to the site where he took photos of the metal and we
chipped off samples for him and supplied him with copies of the last 2 analysis
reports.
Topside, #29, 1968, pp. 11-12.
During his visit, Craig was apparently courteous and
polite despite his considerable scepticism, although Halford-Watlins noted:
While not committing himself
that the material we supplied on the metal and WBS would be used in his report,
he said he would give the matter some serious consideration. We entertained our
guest and an interesting discussion on UFOs followed, but as much of this was
on a strictly “not for publication” basis, we can only honour our word to
[Craig], who stated it was hoped that the Colorado UFO Report might be ready
for publication in September. As for our small contribution and the Colorado
Report itself, we can only hope for the best and that it will be factual and
objective reporting.
Topside, #29, 1968, pp. 11-12.
While this sounded promising, Craig’s version of his
visit was somewhat different:
Mosquitoes by the hundreds
were chewing us up as we looked at "the mysterious chunk of hardware"
which then rested in the yard of the home of an officer of the Royal Canadian
Air Force. The officer was a member of the Ottawa New Sciences Club. The club secretary
and her husband had graciously driven me from my hotel in Ottawa to the
Colonel's home to see the mysterious metal and talk with club members.
As I looked at the
"mysterious metal," my hosts offered to get whatever samples I wished
to take from it. The chunk did look to me for all the world like ordinary
foundry waste. They brought a sledge hammer, with which we knocked off a small
protruding piece which I placed in my briefcase for reasons that were not
entirely clear, for it seemed the material had already been analyzed
adequately.
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
From Craig’s version of the meeting, he was simply just
humouring the group. His scepticism was reinforced by the club’s spokesman,
“the Colonel,” who was running the group following the death of Wilbert Smith.
He explained to Craig:
“We were told, through a
medium,” he said, “that this was part of a space ship twenty miles long and
three miles in diameter which was destroyed (by meteorite collision or other
catastrophe) and was derelict in space. The people ‘topside’ wanted to clear
the derelict from space because man was getting interested in flying around
there, and they didn't want it to cause mishaps. They sent segments to Earth, Mars,
and other planets to get rid of them. These pieces on Earth so originated.”
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
Craig must have been dying on the inside, for he wrote:
Their faith in revelations
received through a spiritual medium during seance obviously was stronger than
their faith in man's knowledge of nature as obtained through the methods of his
science.
Was it merely because that
belief had been held by the late Wilbert Smith, whom they regarded with such
high esteem?
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
Craig then noted what I have termed “ufology and the science
paradox”:
What puzzled me was the
repeated demand for scientific analysis and use of arguments of scientific vein
to refute undesired scientific results.
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
This has amazed me as well. On the one hand, UFO groups
and organizations proclaim their approach to the UFO phenomenon is highly
scientific, and spend time and effort to ensure specific protocols are followed
regarding collection and analyses of physical traces associated with UFO cases.
On the other hand, they also accept unsubstantiated claims of contact with
aliens, subjective testimony by witnesses with low credibility, and encourage
speculation about “interdimensional portals” and “phase-shifting” of alien
spacecraft to explain UFO witnesses’ observations. The willingness to embrace
the possibility of advanced alien technology that seems to violate physical
laws in order to account for UFOs that vanish suddenly, enter and leave bodies
of water, and are visible only to select individuals, contrasts sharply with
the desire to appear and sound scientific.
Craig noted:
The Colonel expressed to me
his feeling that, while his chunk of metal does have all the characteristics of
waste from a foundry when viewed in the realm of three-dimensional physical
existence, “when viewed in a wider framework, the interface of this dimension
with other dimensions, which parallel the physical, it well may be part of a
space ship.”
The “mysterious chunk of
metal” was a fetish. Why, then, the insistent demand for repeated physical and
chemical examination of something whose ultimate significance was considered to
reside in psychic or spiritual realms?
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
Craig did mention the Ottawa artefact in the Condon
Report, although it was written before his visit to Ottawa, because he noted:
“The Club does not claim that the piece of metal is, if fact, part of a
spaceship; however, its members do not reject this possibility.” He noted that
CARDE “considered the material the normal product of a foundry, consisting of
slag with semi-molten scrap embedded in it.” He added:
“Since no connection could be
seen between the existence of this metal or slag and the UFO question, no
further analysis of the material was undertaken by the project. This writer
examined the metallic mass at Ottawa and agreed with the CARDE conclusion that
it was ordinary foundry waste.”
From: Craig, Roy. In: Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying
Objects, Conducted by the University of Colorado Under contract No.
44620-67-C-0035 with the United States Air Force. Dr. Edward U. Condon,
Scientific Director, 1968. Chapter 3: Direct Physical Evidence. Parts of UFOs,
or UFO Equipment, pp. 133-135
Testing the Ottawa artefact again
The Ottawa UFO club was undaunted, however.
During the 3-month Colorado
silence period, some interesting developments were taking place in Canada.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
What was happening was that Ronald Anstee, who led the
Montreal UFO Society, had been given some pieces from the large UFO artefact
and had displayed them at a lecture. After his talk, he had been approached by
someone who knew a “professional metallurgist” and could get the samples tested
independently. This person’s report read:
Findings
1. The corrosion on the part
was slight and only superficial.
2. The specific gravity was
very high.
3. The hardness was Rockwell B
94.
4. Chemical Analysis
Carbon 0.16% Manganese 11.3 SI
0.12
FE Ferrous 88.403 Sulphur
0.017 NI 110
Conclusion
The chemical analysis does not
correspond to any commercial manganese steels as they contain either more
carbon and silicon or some nickel and molybdenum. The alloy work hardened very
heavily during the process of cutting which is inherent to such an alloy. The
slipped lines were more pronounced once nital reagent was used. Since deep
electro-polishing was used in this instance, it indicates that the material
went through heavy impact that caused the different planes to slip.
The fact that this composition
does not correspond to any known commercial manganese steel, is in itself very
interesting, but it does not exclude the possibility of unpublished new
materials being used by either the U.S. S.R. or U.S.A. in their space probes.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
This conclusion led Halford-Watkins to interpret this
thusly:
Now, if this metal underwent
such heavy impact as to cause extensive slippage, surely it is a reasonably
logical conclusion that this hardware must have been part of a spacecraft that
came to grief - it is hardly conceivable that a foundry product would be
subjected to such extreme impact.
The report states that the
metal does not correspond to any known commercial manganese steels and suggests
the possibility of an element they know nothing about. This again surely
suggests an extraterrestrial metal.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
And the extraterrestrial hypothesis was reintroduced as
viable. And to advance the conspiracy theory, she noted:
It is possible, of course, as
suggested in the report, that it might have been part of a Russian or American
space capsule, but if this were the case, why didn’t the Canadian Government
agency hang on to it? Could it be that, in fact, it was completely
unidentifiable and that rather than admit they had proof-positive of a UFO,
they preferred to ignore it?
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
Ronald Anstee was determined to help the Ottawa club, for
he then submitted additional samples for testing by “a group of scientists at
McGill University in Montreal.” Who knows what was found exactly, because
Anstee reported that the scientists were “very disturbed at their findings.”
The leader of this group of scientists, Professor John
Jonas (the only one identified by name at this point), encouraged Anstee to get
the Ottawa club in contact with a few government metallurgists to test the
samples.
Halford-Watkins wrote:
The necessary contact was made
with these 2 gentlemen and full details, including the latest analysis report,
were passed on to them. The 2 scientists expressed interest in the hardware and
on Oct. 14/67, arrangements were made for them to examine the mass of metal on
site and take samples of it for investigation. Both appeared extremely
intrigued by the mysterious circumstances surrounding the finding of the metal
and subsequent tests on it.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
The Ottawa club was encouraged by this, because:
Later, word reached us by
telephone that they were prepared to carry out extensive tests and analyses of
the samples of metal. It was explained that a thorough analysis was normally
rather a long and costly procedure and they were of the opinion that such a
comprehensive analysis had not yet been carried out on the metal. However, they
were, at the time, working on some new experimental equipment by means of which
it was hoped to conduct such an analysis with a great saving in time and money.
Special parts for this equipment were on order from overseas and it was added
that delivery of these parts and subsequent testing of the completed apparatus
might take anywhere up to 6 months to complete. However, when it was ready, the
necessary investigation would be carried out and a report of the findings sent
to us.
Topside, Number 27, Winter 1968, pp. 7-9
Again, a different take on this is given by Craig:
Eight years after the CARDE
analysis, the group was still seeking additional analyses, and the club
secretary suggested I might get additional information from Dr. Eric Smith,
Chief, Metal Physics Section of Canada Department of Energy, Mines, and
Resources. Dr. Smith had samples of the metal and was awaiting completion of
installation of new equipment from Japan, with which he would conduct thorough
tests and analyses.
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
This was the government metallurgist Halford-Watkins
heard about via telephone. But it doesn’t sound like he was impressed with the
samples, because Craig wrote:
When I later contacted Dr.
Smith, he said he indeed planned to analyze the material, but he wouldn't be at
all surprised if it came from the Sorel Iron Foundries, Sorel, Quebec, more
than fifty miles upstream from the site where the material was found. He said
production of high-manganese steel is one of the specialties of this foundry,
and it is standard practice to dig a hole in sand and dump surplus or
non-specification molten material into it. A plug often is inserted so the
accumulated mass can be grasped for moving by a crane. Such waste is not
utilized or recovered because of its uncertain composition. Dr. Smith said,
further, that large chunks of such waste are known to have been buried around a
foundry of the Sorel type. His description of the material matched the chunk of
metal in the Colonel's yard precisely.
From: Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995, pp. 121-132.
Later, Halford-Watkins wrote about how Dr. Eric Smith
visited the Club and examined the large artefact.
...in September 1967, Dr.
Smith examined the mass on site, took samples and promised a full report on his
findings. After two-and-a-half years of continued delaying tactics we are still
awaiting his report!
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
The Topside group was persistent. They sought additional
testing by anyone who might help them establish the extraterrestrial nature of
the 3,000-pound artefact.
The National Research Council
In 1969, Dr. Peter Millman, who led UFO investigations at
the National Research Council of Canada, “expressed interest in the metal and
offered to arrange a scientific investigation into it. Samples of the metal
were passed to him by Lieutenant Commander Arthur Bray, to whom Dr. Millman
promised a report on his findings.”
Millman was officially Head of the Upper Atmosphere
Research Section, Radio & Electrical Engineering Division, of the NRC. At a
meeting of the Ottawa club, held in the home of Arthur and Dorothy Bray,
Millman, an outspoken UFO debunker, had given a talk about the scientific view
of UFOs. It was during this meeting that the members had asked, and he had
agreed to try and get the metal analysed.
But Millman’s response was even more noncommittal than
that of Roy Craig. He effectively played cat-and-mouse with Halford-Watkins for
many months.
In late 1969, Brian Cannon, a representative of the
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, had
received a letter from Millman about several UFO matters (including the Falcon
Lake case, which Millman had dismissed out of hand), in which he stated:
…there was “nothing unusual”
about the metal, that it was manganese steel, and apparently ladle residue from
the Sorel Foundry in Quebec, which inserts a pipe into the hole where waste
molten metal is poured, and after solidification, the pipe is used to lift the
mass of metal.
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
This disturbed Halford-Watkins, who was upset that
Millman was telling others about his findings on the metal but had not told the
Ottawa group. She sent an angry letter off to Millman, demanding to know what
was going on.
Further complicating the matter was the intervention of
another UFO fan who wanted to test the metal scientifically. This was Arthur H.
Matthews of Lac Beauport, Quebec, who said he could test the metal using a
“Tesla Bridge” and determine if the object had ever been in outer space.
Matthews was a contactee who channelled messages from Nikola Tesla and had
constructed a Tesla Scope for communicating with aliens. He claimed that in
1941, aliens from Venus had landed their spacecraft, called the X-12, near his
farm and had began a series of meetings with him during which they imparted
esoteric knowledge.
On September 28, 1969, members of the Ottawa club, along
with Ronald Anstee, watched as Matthews tested the UFO artefact at their
meeting place. But even they were
appalled by what transpired.
The test appeared to consist
of stringing wires and a small flat box-like object across the metal, which
were linked up to a tape recorder on which Mr. Matthews made two 6-minute
recordings. Despite questions, Mr. Matthews declined to explain how the Tesla
device worked. All that he admitted was that it had been used to detect flaws
in metal railway lines.
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
Needless to say, Matthews’ test:
…left some grave doubts in the
minds of some of our technical workers who witnessed it, particularly as no
scientific proof was forthcoming to support it, and most of them were unable to
accept that it was possible to prove that the metal mass had never been in
space with a device used primarily for detecting flaws in metal railway lines!
It was also noted that the volume indicator on the tape recorder link to the
Tesla Bridge showed no signs of life.
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
But true to his word, Matthews sent Halford-Watkins a report on his test of the metal, in only three days! But, alas, it was not what they wanted to hear:
It required many hours of
careful study to complete the Tesla Bridge, but only 12 minutes to test the
block by means of Tesla's instructions. This test was recorded by transfer onto
a magnetic tape and my study of this on return to Quebec proves without any
doubt that it is a man-made form of iron and is without any doubt composed of Earth
found ores. This piece of metal was never in space. Further tests to prove my
statement can be done if the complete block is applied to a reverberatory
furnace.
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
Further confounding the matter, Matthews noted in his
report that he had been asked to test the metal “by a person whose name he was
not permitted to divulge.”
Halford-Watkins sent a letter to Matthews, demanding some
clarification and wanting to know who “Mr. X” was. He replied: “I have referred
your request re my findings on the metal to the federal authority who requested
the test, as these findings are confidential.”
So, as Halford-Watkins noted to the Topside readership:
Here was news indeed. So the
mysterious Mr. X was a federal authority! As Dr. Millman has the responsibility
for government UFO research, and by Mr. Matthews’ own admittance, he made two
telephone calls to the National Research Council on arrival in Ottawa prior to
the test, we could only assume that Dr. Millman must be the federal authority
concerned.
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
And voila! Millman was definitely part of the conspiracy
to suppress the truth about the artefact. Halford-Watkins even sent a letter to
Millman on December 9, 1969, explicitly accusing him of being Matthews’ “Mr.
X.”
By early 1970, with no reply from Millman,
Halford-Watkins declared victory.
To date, two months later, no
reply has been received to this letter, which was not entirely unexpected. Did
Dr. Millman find our questions too sticky to answer, or was he adopting the
safer course of the old adage that says “silence is golden?” We are not blaming
him personally for this somewhat cavalier attitude towards a public request for
information - in fact, we have some sympathy for the embarrassing position he
now finds himself in. Even as a senior civil servant, he still has to take his
orders from a higher authority and as long as governmental silence policy
exists on such matters, this situation will continue, although we believe the day
will finally dawn when governments will recognize their moral responsibilities
and give the public the true facts.
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
About the same time, however, Arthur Bray received a
letter from Millman, noting that the samples tested by Dr. Ian Smith, Head of the
Metal Physics Section, Federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources in
Ottawa, showed “no evidence of extraterrestrial origin.” On learning of this,
Halford-Watkins wrote:
Dr. Millman stated that
competent scientists experienced no difficulty in recognizing the
non-terrestrial nature of certain space material. He also deplored the mystery
which had been built up around the chunk. These two latter statements we regard
as the biggest enigma of all. If it is such an easy matter for scientists to
determine the Extra-Terrestrial nature or otherwise of material tested, why has
it taken the government over 9 years to produce a simple statement of the facts
of the case, thereby itself creating much of the mystery that has surrounded
the metal?
Topside, #33, Winter/Spring 1970, pp. 13-17
She added later:
…we admit to being somewhat
puzzled at the delay if, as alleged, the results of the study show no evidence
of extraterrestrial origin - or could it be that proof of this would not stand
up to close scientific scrutiny? And thus, as all along the line, it has been
governmental silence which has created much of the mystery that still surrounds
the 3,000-pound chunk of unidentified hardware.
Topside, #34, 1970, pp. 22-23.
Here, she may have had a point. Millman was dodging the
issue and adding to the confusion through his reluctance to reply directly to
her. She published excerpts from correspondence between Bray and Millman that
show his dance of vagueness.
In his letter dated January
1970, Dr. Millman states: “I should remind you that in the case of material from
space such as moon rocks, meteorites, reentry debris from spacecraft, there has
been no difficulty experienced by competent scientists in recognizing its
non-terrestrial nature and identifying it as different to terrestrial
material.” … And yet, in a letter dated September 9th, 1969, Dr. Millman had
this to say: “I think I should mention here, however, that even with a complete
examination and analysis of such a specimen, it is not a foregone conclusion
that we can give an absolutely definite yes or no concerning its terrestrial or
extraterrestrial origin.” Topside,
#34, 1970, pp. 22-23.
Halford-Watkins was justifiably confused by the apparent
contradiction.
In view of these two
apparently conflicting statements, we can only ask two questions: 1) how come
they are suddenly so certain that the metal is not of extraterrestrial origin?
And 2) will the real Dr. Millman please stand up?
Topside, #34, 1970, pp. 22-23.
Elements and isotopes
Yet another set of tests were done by an American UFO
group, the Unidentified Flying Objects Researchers Alliance (UFORA) of
Alliance, Ohio. Its director, Paul J.L. Rozich, provided a lengthy report on
his testing, the first time they had received something of such depth.
Rozich detailed his various investigations, including
non-destructive testing with an x-ray vacuum quantometer. He reported:
Major Constituents Minor Constituents
Iron (Fe) Cobalt
(Co)
Nickel (Ni) Silicon
(Si)
Manganese (Mn) Magnesium
(Mg)
Chromium (Cr) Sulfur
(S)
Potassium
(K)
No traces were found of
Aluminum (Al), Sodium (Na), Phosphorus (P) or Chlorine (Cl).
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
Halford-Watkins was encouraged by this result. She noted:
But perhaps the most
significant finding of the report is, in fact, a non-finding, i. e, according
to the major test conducted on the metal by the X-ray vacuum quantometer, no
traces were found of aluminum, calcium, and copper which normally one would expect
to find in a terrestrial alloy of magnesium!
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
How she knew this, I am not sure.
But she was astute in her realization that the analysis
of an alleged UFO artefact requires detailed and advanced studies.
Taking an open-minded view of
the general metal analysis situation, we are the first to realize that numerous
difficulties lie in the way of establishing definitely whether or not a metal
sample is of extraterrestrial origin. The obvious reason for this and as pointed
out in an earlier issue, is that there is every possibility that other planets
have the same elements as those of planet Earth.
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
She cited the work of Dr. Allen R. Utke, whose article in
the December 1970 issue of the ufozine Skylook
included his observation that:
Most scientists are convinced
that the same 92 natural elements found here on Earth are found everywhere in
the universe with no new natural elements yet-to-be-discovered. We would only
begin to suspect extraterrestrial origin if the sample, upon extensive
analysis, was found to be one of the following: 1. An uncommon element,
absolutely pure or of unusually high purity. 2. A mixture of elements or an
alloy with a highly unusual or previously unknown composition and or set
of properties. 3. A compound or mixture
of compounds with a highly unusual or previously unknown composition or set of
properties. 4. A material with a highly unusual or previously unknown atomic or
molecular structure.
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
She added:
Dr. Utke concedes that the
only evidence which would probably convince scientists of an extraterrestrial
origin is a sample whose isotopic distribution differed significantly from that
of the same elements on Earth.
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
And even if such evidence was found, Halford-Watkins
doubted that it would prove alien visitation.
The crucial question is,
however, even if 100% foolproof evidence were established, would the scientific
establishment be prepared to admit it, or would they produce their usual flow
of phony alibis to wriggle out of acknowledging the existence of
extraterrestrial material?
However, despite the odds
against us, we in private UFO research should press on regardless and with sincere
prayer that in the final analysis, the truth will prevail!
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
This was the last publication of anything related to the
Ottawa club’s UFO artefact. The group ceased publication of Topside in 1971, and they appear to have
disbanded shortly after.
What happened to the 3,000-pound chunk of metal is not
known. John Magor noted in one of his books that it might be languishing in the
back yard of one of the club’s homes in Ottawa, forgotten and overgrown with
grass and weeds.
The story of the testing, retesting and debate over the
origin of the chunk is testament to how UFO zealots cling to their beliefs
against scientific reason, but also how scientists fail to make their case to
those attracted to the subject and undermine their own position.
In the last issue of Topside,
Halford-Watkins concluded her review of the UFO artefact with a statement that
could be as accepted by UFO believers today, as in 1971:
From knowledge of the personal
experiences of the late Wilbert B. Smith, of one thing we are sure - those
government scientists engaged on UFO research, who work so mysteriously behind
the silence curtain, have been well aware of the existence of extraterrestrial
material for a long time now!
Topside, #35, Winter 1971, pp. 29-33.
Somewhere in Ottawa, Canada, is a 3,000-pound mass of
metal that is one of the first UFO artefacts to have been scientifically
tested. The story of claims and counter claims regarding its composition
remains unresolved according to some ufologists. But this story is so similar
to that of present-day debates about UFO artefacts, it should be held up as a
lesson for those involved in the field today.
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