Analysis of Metal Piece from Roswell

Transcript of Art Bell Radio Show, Interviews with Linda Howe, 5/96

As many of you know, there is a report of a new metal sample that purported came from Roswell, which Art Bell has been covering on his radio show. Chris Terraneau, member of the IUFO mailing list posted this transcript of two shows aired in May (1996) in which Art Bell interviews UFO research Linda Howe (known for her work with the cattle mutilation) about analysis being done on this metal by a specialist she is working with who prefers to be anonymous. Listen in and see what is happening ....

ILLINOIS

Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 12:29:26 EST5EDT
From: chris.terraneau%f746.n202.z1@xbn.shore.net (chris terraneau)
Sender: IUFO Mailing List {IUFO@xbn.shore.net}
Organization: SearchNet HeadQuarters
Reply-To: Chris Terraneau {iufo@xbn.shore.net}
Subject: Bell's Debris

Report On Preliminary Scientific Examination
of Art Bell's Roswell Debris

Originally broadcast on Sunday, 12 May 1996

AB = Art Bell
LH = Linda Howe

AB: All right folks, here it comes. Linda Howe, yesterday on Dreamland with regard to the materials, she's acted as an intermediary for, that claim or alledge to be from the Roswell crash. Here is the preliminary report:

LH: ...And you've now had one correspondence that you have put out, you've gotten another. I don't know if you're going to distribute that publicly, but it comes down to the fact that somebody says that they have had pieces of artifacts from a crash. In the letter it says Roswell. We don't know where, there's no specific coordinates.

AB: All right, if I might, let me stop you and tell everybody. The second letter, the one Linda is now referring to, with regard to the Roswell pieces, is now on the internet. It's under anonymous letters, that you see first the photographs of the material, then the first letter. And now, the second letter has been added to it as of this moment on my web page.

Linda, if you would, start out... you've been a middle person for me, and I really want to thank you because getting something like this is actually kind of a burden.

LH: It is very difficult, Art, because you now are experiencing what for the last sixteen years, trying to find anybody with very credible, professional credentials who would be willing to look at physical tissue and samples in the unusual animal deaths was difficult, and now, having to deal with artifacts that may have come from a craft from someplace else is also difficult. And, we are still experiencing the same syndrome, that these professionals ask for and must remain anonymous in order to protect their positions in their work...

AB: All right, how much can you tell us about the scientist, he's well credentialed, who examined this possible wreckage?

LH: Yes, and he is in a major Midwestern university. He has been helping me and several other investigators in several aspects of the phenomena for about seven years. His work is extremely good, well-done. And he has been looking at the alledged Roswell UFO crash artifacts that you received last month...

AB: All right, can you before we get to that, tell us what kind of tests were done on the material?

LH: Yeah. You gave him ten pieces. And the ten pieces broke down into five small, what turn out to be, this is very interesting: They are perfect squares. They've been measured, and they are exactly six millimenters by six millimeters square, and less than one millimeter thick. And every one of those five little squares weighs exactly one hundred sixty milligrams each.

AB: How likely is that, because the pieces I gave you Linda, were not all shaped the same? I gave you some circles I think, some oblongs, and some squares.

LH: That's right. The five squares are exactly perfect squares. And they exactly weigh a hundred and sixty milligrams each, and they are machined. The edges of each one of those little squares, when they looked at - and this comes to your question - he used a scanning electron microscope, which is used with the energy dispersive spectroscopy. Now, what this all means, these big words, is that they have the ability now, with scanning electron microscopes, to take something, let's say this is six millimeters wide, which is just a little bit over a quarter of an inch. And they can go down to the surface, and they can keep going down and down, they get down to one to two microns. And to show you how small that is, if you could take and isolate a single blood cell out of your blood stream, it would be about seven microns in diameter - a blood cell. They're going down to one to two microns, which is about a third the size of a blood cell, to take a look at things on these artifacts that you sent. And when they get to a place that they're interested in, or various places, they then can ratchet - change into - a particular kind of switch which is the energy-dispersive spectroscopy. And when you find out what you want to measure, you're on a spot, this will determine exactly what elements are there.

When they did this, on the five little squares, on the two elipticals, which also were six millimeters wide...

AB: Linda, I'm going to ask you to hold on for just a moment... Linda are you there? Yes, I hear you. All right, so we were on the smaller pieces, and you said they weighed a hundred and sixty grams each.

LH: Yeah, the five. And out of the ten pieces that you sent, eight of the ten have a common denominator of each being six millimeters wide. So there were five that were perfectly square. There were two eliptical that were six millimeters by eight millimeters. And the circle was six millimeters in diameter. So six millimeters seem to be a constant, at least in some of these dimensions. Now, one we'll call it the very thin blade, it measured exactly ten inches by one point five inches, which the scientist thought was unusual that anything would end up in even inches, which is a terrestrial measurement. That could be that it was sawed-off from something, that's unknown. He thought that was strange that it should measure so exactly. And the last piece is the approximately two and three-eigths inches by one and fifteen-sixteenths inches, not square - almost square - we'll call it the "vent". It is the small, very very thin object with very thin slits throughout it.

Now, I'm going to have some other detailed remarks to make about the - we'll call it the "blade" and the "vent". But first, I want to go to a sentence that is from the second communication that you now have out on the computer. And this is from the source who says: "Grandad stated their own analysis," he's talking back in that he came into possession in 1974 from his grandfather who got them from, I guess, the 1947 crash, is what he's alledging. "Grandad stated their own analysis of the samples indicated it as pure extract aluminum, as a conductor for the electromagnetic field created in the propulsion system."

And we'll stop there for a second. That sentence certainly seemed to hold up when they took the electron-dispersive spectroscopy to every single one of the ten pieces, on several parts of them. Now what they're doing, in the EDS, you bombard with electrons, and it knocks out electrons. Kind of puches out the electrons. And those electrons have a very characteristic wavelength. They put out an X-ray when they fly out, and that X-ray has a very characteristic wavelength. And then you can tell exactly what the element is. Well, over and over and over again in every one of these it was, and this is the phrase that is correct to use, "greater than ninety-nine percent aluminum, and could not detect any other element".

Because scientists are reluctant to say that anything is a hundred percent anything. Because even putting your fingerprints or brushing it on soil can add something that might be picked up at one-hundredth of a percent, if you understand what I mean.

AB: I do. Now, what does that mean, now for example, is there much terrestrial production done in pure aluminum, or is it usually for strength and alloy?

LH: Usually when we're building with aluminum in something, we are putting and adding manganese or other alloys to strengthen. And tomorrow, or Tuesday, this scientist is going to be meeting with a metalurgical professional to discuss exactly these issues, of aluminum alloys and one hundred percent alloy, and I hope that next Sunday I can have a further update on that.

But I want to say that there's something else interesting that showed up in the scanning electron microscope. Which gets into this question of whether or not there's anything that could be structural, it's certainly not an alloy, but what they found in one of the five little squares were silicon granules. They were one to two microns, and they seem to be embedded in the surface of the aluminum and on this square there were striations across it as if the little square had itself been either scratched or abraded by something. And it raised the speculation, which ranges from, could these pieces have had impact with something that was sandy or dusty, or, is there a processing mechanism in the manufacturing of these little pieces that somehow brought a silicon polishing dust to them. We're going to learn a little bit more about that from the metalurgist.

And when you come to - we'll call it the very thin blade - it was less than a millimeter, just extremely thin and light, ten inches long and one and a half inches wide. On that, and what we're calling the little "vent", were granules that were different. These turned out to be ten percent manganese, ten percent iron and eighty percent aluminum. I'm talking now only in little granules. It seemed to somehow be attached or also embedded. Now, what they are or what they mean or whether they are something that was picked up over time, the source said that he's had these since 1974, and they were tarnished, and they may have been exposed to other things. That part's hard to know.

Well, a question still hanging is, even if they are all aluminum on the outside, could there be any structural detail on the inside? Well tonight, just before we went on the air, the scientist called me, he was in the lab, he had with your per mission Art, he had cut into one of the little five squares that we talked about. And he said it was pure silver, shiny, appeared to have no other structural detail. And at this point it appears that that at least it is just aluminum. Aluminum, aluminum, aluminum. And, as he said to me, in this universe where as far as we look, when we look at all of the elements and we look at the stars in the galaxies, we keep seeing the same spectrum of the same elements.

So, if it is aluminum, and aluminum and aluminum, over and over and over again, what we do not know is function. We know we have aluminum on this planet, there must be aluminum throughout the universe and other places, but what are the function of these? And to this date, there is nothing about any of this, that is to the scientist, or even some of the people he has worked with, and they have discussed, there is nothing that even indicates any kind of function from these pieces at this point.

AB: In other words, no Earthly use they can discern?

LH: Not at this point. And the other question comes back to the source's strange sentence about "used as a conductor for the electromagnetic field created in the propulsion system." Well, aluminum might conduct some electricity, but what would the relationship be specifically to an electromagnetic field? We're also going to talk with a metalurgist and some other people about that...

AB: Answer is of course it's not magnetic, aluminum is not magnetic!

LH: That's right. So by next week, then, we may have a little bit more. At least professional information about some of these questions. But at this point Art, there is nothing that we can say that would confirm or deny that they are in fact extraterrestrial, other dimensional, time travel, or anything. It's aluminum, aluminum, aluminum. In shapes that appear to definately appear to have been machined. Could they have been machined on the Earth, I am asuming definately in this day and age, they could have been. In 1947, could that be a source, we do not know and all we've got to go by at this point are this man's two letters.

AB: All right, and there's some chance that they impacted on something?

LH: Well, it's speculation about the silicon granules in one of the five little squares. It could also be a manufacturing process. And these are the kinds of things that are very difficult for us to know beyond the fact that we've got these two letters from this man claiming that these are artifacts from a crash.

Now, I think it's also important to point out that Jesse Marcell Jr., who saw some of this material that his father brought home to the kitchen in 1947, July, described completely different types of materials.

AB: A type of crinkly thing, that would regain its shape.

LH: And he said, he told me in that interview that he never personally crinkled them up. His father told him that. He never did it himself, but he said that he did handle the material. He saw for himself those fuscia-colored symbols in these little three-eighths-of-an-inch-wide little beams that were so light and have been compared in other research to balsa wood. Looking like sort of a silvery, coppery color. But being compared to balsa wood. Again, all of that is quite different from this aluminum, aluminum, aluminum.

AB: So, we have something interesting on our hands.

LH: Interesting, indeed. But we have more questions than we have answers. But we have at least been able to say, it is aluminum. And that's what this man said in his letters before we did any of these tests.

AB: Yes, he did. So, who knows? Well, I guess I just go on suffering the unknown. But at least we've got a preliminary report.

---End of transcript

---

Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 14:03:56 EST5EDT
From: chris.terraneau%f746.n202.z1@xbn.shore.net (chris terraneau)
Sender: IUFO Mailing List {IUFO@xbn.shore.net}

Follow-Up Report On Scientific Examination
of Art Bell's Roswell Debris

Broadcast on Sunday, 19 May 1996

AB = Art Bell
LH = Linda Howe

AB: As many of you know, and some of you may not, I received two now, anonymous letters and some anonymous pieces that claim to be wreckage from the UFO crash at Roswell. This material was turned over to a scientist through Linda Howe. A very reputable scientist, for testing.

Well, you may remember Linda's words from last week:

LH: (on tape) Aluminum... aluminum, aluminum, aluminum.

AB: And that's what she had to say last week. Now, that has not necessarily changed this week, but the story folks, goes on. And we've run into a big mystery. Here's Linda with this week's rest of the story. Go ahead, Linda...

LH: OK, for round two. One of the faxes that I received was from Mr. Edward Thork from Denver, Pennsylvania, who has studied on his own a lot about metallurgy. And he called me to say that a piece of 99% pure aluminum, exactly six millimeters by six millimeters by one millimeter, would have to weigh 97 milligrams, not the 160 milligrams that the university scientist found, for each of the five little squares.

AB: Now, they did spectography, they did the electron scanning microscope and all the rest on the little piece, on the outside of it, and found nothing but, as you said, aluminum, aluminum, aluminum. And so, that should weigh...

LH: Ninety-seven. And I went back to the scientist, and I said, here's the situation, and he went back to the lab, he checked the calibration on his scale. And he re-measured each of the little squares, and the answers were the same. But he also did a calculation, and said, yes that it was true: If the little squares are 99% pure aluminum at six by six by one millimeters, they really should weigh 97 milligrams, not 160 milligrams. So now we have a weight discrepancy to solve.

Well, another faxer said that he had worked in an aluminum diecast plant, and proposed that all the pieces are sample molds used to determine material content. He said that the grooves in the round piece that resembles a phonograph record are created by the metal lathe used to smooth the surface to be tested. This is a quote from his fax:

"The squares, oblong and round fragments are punch-outs, that are material that is removed from the castings to make openings for mechanical connections, and therefore they are scrap material, and thrown away."

Well, I spent a lot of time the past few days talking with metallurgists, including two who worked with aluminum almost exclusively, at Sandia Labs in Albequerque, from the early 1950s until they retired a few years ago. Both suggested that if so far the scientific analysis with the electronic dispersive spectroscopy showed only aluminum atoms on the surface of the object - because remember Art, at first you wanted to keep them all intact, so the first round of testing was really only on the surface of the objects. When he punched through a little bit on one Sunday just before the program, that was not with the EDS testing.

Well, the logical conclusion is, according to these men, that there is a coating of aluminum around another different metal on the inside, which can be a way to manufacture aluminum alloys. Because aluminum is non-corosive, and might be used as a coating. Now, this is what a retired Sandia Laboratory metallurgist, Charlie Mack, had to say about why the EDS might have picked up only aluminum, and whether or not the pieces could be scrap punch-outs:

(Linda plays a tape recording of Charlie Mack)

-------------

CM: Unless the aluminum was fairly thick, the coating of aluminum on the outside, you would burn through that and hit the inside as well.

LH: Right, like an M&M. Like a coated M&M candy.

CM: Yeah, yeah.

LH: And aluminum might be the outside, and something on the inside that, whatever is coated, is deeper inside the squares than EDS is penetrating.

CM: That's exactly right.

LH: Yeah. And that's why they've got to get on the inside. They've got to cut through a whole piece.

CM: Right.

LH: Would it make sense to you, from all of your experience, that there could be five punch-outs that were scrap material from alloy production that would each weigh exactly 160 milligrams?

CM: Um... The means by which it was punched, the tooling would have to be excellent, in order to come up with the same volume of material punched out. Which of course is kinda unusual. It's kinda unusual that they would all be that way. That way if they were all punched out.

LH: So, it is not normal for scrap aluminum punch-out material that's thrown away to end up looking identical, being exactly the same size and weighing exactly the same.

CM: (laughs)

----------------

LH: So Art, maybe the mystery about the weight discrepancy will be explained if we find there is an aluminum coating around a denser internal metal. Those tests will be done in the last week of May, and I'll be able to report back on the Memorial Day weekend Dreamland.

Finding a coated alloy does not mean the fragments are from an extraterrestrial craft either. Pure aluminum does not exist naturally, because the element is so reactive with other elements that all 99% pure aluminum has been processed by someone, somewhere. Aluminum does not corrode, so using it as a metal coating is part of our twentieth- century industrial technology. And if it worked here, maybe it's used to build round disks that travel through time and space somewhere else, too.

AB: Well it's a real mystery now. In other words all this careful testing on the outside picked up nothing else except what I recall you to say was al little bit of virtual sand.

LH: Yeah, they found one or two micron silicon fragments, and I have confirmed that silicon is used in the aluminum manufacturing process. It can be used as an alloy and it can also be used as a flux to clean out equipment where they are working with aluminum alloys. So that could explain why there are those small sand dust pieces. There were some slightly different percentages on the vent, what we call the vent, and that long scrap. They had some other mixtures which also could have come from the dust of work with an alloy. And maybe in the final result, we will have an alloy that might be some company's sophisticated punch- out scrap. And then that would mean that whoever sent these letters and sent these pieces was perhaps trying to run us off in a red hering. Or, it could end up being another anomaly that we have studied but we could never prove its origin, like so many other puzzles in UFO phenomena.

AB: All right, but the big headline is, it really can't be aluminum, aluminum, aluminum. Not at this weight.

LH: With the weight discrepancy, there's got to be something else there.

AB: Humph... Fascinating.

LH: It is.

AB: And they cut one of the squares open and they found nothing but a shiny, apparent, aluminum interior, as well...

LH: So far. But they haven't put it under the EDS, and that will happen in that last week of May.

AB: All right, and if they find nothing but aluminum, aluminum, aluminum, then we've really got a problem, don't we?

LH: Well, it would almost be a physical impossibility as I understand the physics of the universe at this point. Because if it weighs 160 milligrams...

AB: There has to be more there.

LH: There has to be something else there adding that weight.

AB: All right, and so it is folks, the mystery of the day.

---End of transcript---

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