When UFOs Land - Popular Mechanics

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WHEN UFOs LAND. (cover story)

Wilson, Jim

Popular Mechanics; May2001, Vol. 178 Issue 5, p64, 4p, 2 ColorPhotographs, 2 Black and White Photographs

Article

*UNIDENTIFIED flying objects -- Sightings & encounters*METALS*LIQUID metals

NAICS/Industry Codes332812 Metal Coating, Engraving (except Jewelryand Silverware), and Allied Services to Manufacturers332811 Metal Heat Treating

Reveals several sigthings of unidentified flying objects (UFO). Metaldebris collected by a physician from an exploded UFO near the town ofUbatuba, Brazil; Descending green light from an UFO noticed by LuisDelgado, a patrolman for the Haines City, Florida police department;Molten metal ejected by an UFO onto the ground in Council Bluffs, Iowa.INSET: Origin Of Ejecta?.

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Academic Search CompleteSection: Science

WHEN UFOS LAND

At long last, scientists have their hands on the proof skeptics say doesn't exist--physicalevidence of flying saucers. The rich really are different. When Laurance S. Rockefeller--yes, those Rockefellers--wanted toknow more about UFOs, he didn't have to satisfy his curiosity at alien hunters' Web sites Or in theWeird Science sect He asked Peter A. Sturrock, the former director Science and Astrophysics atStanford University, to convene a private meeting of a dozen top scientists at the PocanticoConference Center, on the grounds of the old Rockefeller family estate 20 miles north of Manhattan.Sturrock's guest list and agenda was noteworthy for its omissions. Bob Lazar, who claimed to havereverse engineered UFOs at Area 51, wasn't invited. Neither was alien-buster Philip J. Klass of theCommittee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Roswell, the "face" on Marsand other familiar sightings got little attention. Instead, researchers from, Princeton University,Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Center for Space Research in Francefocused on cases with more meat on their bones--sightings in which physical evidence was leftbehind. "While their findings were not conclusive, I hope [they] will raise the level of the debate,"Rockefeller said afterward.

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"Ask most scientists what they think of the UFO enigma and you will almost certainly get a scoff anda brushoff like, 'There's not one shred of evidence,'" says Bernard Haisch, astronomer with morethan 100 scientific publications to his credit. "That answer is simply not true. The problem is that thisevidence does not follow our expected scientific logic, and so scientists dismiss what is, in fact, ahuge number of accounts. Many sighting reports, as absurd as they sometimes appear are probablyreal. Most professional scientists never bother to look at the evidence. Instead, the dogmaticdismissals by professional debunkers, which are often patently ridiculous, are simply taken at facevalue."

As you will see for yourself, some of the cases discussed at Pocantico are difficult for even die-hardskeptics to ignore.

Police Cruiser BlackoutLuis Delgado was a 28-year-old patrolman for the Haines City, Fla., police department when hebecame part of one of the most compelling UFO sightings. It happened about 3:50 am, on March 19,1992. Delgado noticed a rapidly descending green light in his rearview mirror as he drove down astreet alongside a citrus grove. The light seemed to keep pace with his cruiser, until he slowed down.Then the silent, dome-shaped object flew overhead, filling his police cruiser with a brilliant greenglow. He pulled to a stop, and the power in his vehicle went dead. For the next several minutes hestood outside his car watching the 15-ft.-wide craft hover silently in front of him. It seemed to floatabout 10 ft. off the ground, cooling the surrounding air to the point at which it formed a foggy mist.Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it sped away. Delgado returned to his car, and found theelectrical system was again operating.

"The scientific panel was very impressed by cases in which electrical equipment was disrupted," saysMichael D. Swords, of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich. A conference participant atPocantico, Swords told POPULAR MECHANICS that this type of encounter is far more common thanmost people realize. UFO investigator Mark Rodeghier of the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago toldthe conference at Pocantico that over the past 50 years more than 500 similar reports had been filed.What distinguishes the Delgado sighting is the inherent credibility of the observer. As a police officer,Delgado had nothing to gain--and possibly a great deal to lose--by coming forward with his account.

Trans-En-ProvenceFor UFO investigators, the most disappointing aspect of the Delgado sighting isn't the absence ofevidence, but the way evidence has been allowed to simply disappear through neglect. Samples ofthe nearby road and vegetation were never collected. No radiation measurements of the area weremade.

UFO researchers in France take the scientific investigations of unexplained aerial phenomena moreseriously than those in the United States. The Center for Space Research, France's counterpart toNASA, even has a team that swings into action when these types of events occur. The team is calledGEPAN, after the French acronym for Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Study Group.

GEPAN investigator Jean-Jacques Velasco told the Pocantico conference the details of what isperhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time, the Trans-En-Provence


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incident.

Renato Nicolai didn't think he had seen a UFO, but instead a secret military aircraft that had strayedfrom its test site. A contractor who had been retired for about two years when the episode occurredon Jan. 8, 1981, Nicolai was working on his terrace in the late afternoon when he heard a faintwhistling. In the distance he saw a lead-colored object, about 5 ft. high, a bit wider in diameter, andshaped like a pair of inverted bowls, fall from the sky. It came to a floating stop about 6 ft. above theground. For the next half-minute he observed the object, and then watched it rise into the sky,creating a small trail of dust. "When my wife came home in the evening, I told her what I had seen,"he said in his official report. "My wife thought I was joking." The following morning, he showed herwhere it had hovered and the two of them spotted circular traces it had left in the ground. Neighborssuggested they tell the police.

Through the police, word reached GEPAN, which routinely checks to see whether such sightings areof a military activity or an aircraft. When both were ruled out, GEPAN interviewed Nicolai andcollected soil from the area where the object had reportedly hovered. The mystery only deepened.There was black material mixed with the soil, but chemical analysis ruled out combustion residue, oilor concrete. Later analyses showed the soil had been contaminated with traces of metal, and thesurrounding vegetation showed subtle damage.

Something happened in Trans-En-Provence, but to this day no one is certain of what that was.

Metal RainThere was absolutely no question about what happened in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the night of Dec.17, 1977. A UFO ejected about 40 pounds of molten metal onto the ground. While most of Americawas settling down for the evening sitcoms, Mike and Criss Moore, who were each 24 at the time,were driving to Mike's mother's home in Council Bluffs. About a half mile ahead, just above thetreetops, they saw a glowing red ball falling toward Big Lake Park. "It hit the ground in the vicinity ofGilberts Pond in Big Lake Park, across the Missouri River from Eppley Airfield. The exact streetaddress is 1900 N. Eighth St.," says Jacques F. Vallee--a computer scientist who has compiled adatabase of thousands of sightings--in detailing the episode. When onlookers arrived at the impactpoint on a small levee, they found a 4-in.-thick mass of molten, red-orange metal covering the frozenground, about 16 ft. from the road. The metal mass was still glowing 15 minutes later when MikeMoore's father, assistant fire chief Jack Moore, arrived.

After the metal had cooled, Robert Allen, a local astronomer, collected samples. Part of the roughly40-pound slab went to the U.S. Air Force's Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air ForceBase in Ohio. A portion also went to the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University. The Air Forcenever made its analysis public, but in a letter assured local authorities that "reentering spacecraftdebris does not impact the earth's surface in a molten state." In his report, Ames Laboratory directorRobert S. Hansen ruled out a meteor.

Officially, the episode remains an unsolved mystery, but Vallee sees it as something more telling. TheCouncil Bluffs episode was not unique. At the Pocantico conference, Vallee said that in at least nineother sightings, aerial objects in distress were accompanied by ejection of molten metal. "Reports of


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unusual metallic following the observation of an unexplained aerial phenomenon are detailed enoughfor a comparative study to be undertaken."

True Skeptics NeededBernard Haisch, a former Lockheed scientist who had served on the Rockerfeller panel in 1997,believes it is time for the scientific community to become more skeptical in the truest sense of theword. "We need to be skeptical of both the believers and the scoffers," he told PM during a visit to theCalifornia Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Palo Alto, Calif., where he is currently director. Tothis end, Haisch recently created www.ufoskeptic.org. The Web site encourages mainstreamscientists to reconsider the UFO phenomenon in light of recent advances in physics, such assuperstring and M-brane theories, which postulate the existence of multidimensional space. "I havebeen an active professional astronomer since earning my doctorate in 1975," he says. "I've learnedquite a bit about the UFO phenomenon over the years, certainly more than I had bargained for. UFOsightings are not limited to farmers in backward rural areas. There are astronomers, and pilots andNASA engineers, who have witnessed events for which there is no plausible conventionalexplanation."

Origin of Ejecta?In 1957, a UFO reportedly exploded after hitting the water near the town of Ubatuba, Brazil. Metallicdebris collected by a physician, turned out to be composed of an extremely high grade ofmagnesium.

Recently declassified documents explain what it might have been. During the 1950s and 1960s, theU.S. Air Force experimented with electrostatic drives. In theory, lift and propulsion can be created byimparting airframes with an electric charge that matches, and therefore repels, the surrounding air.Such an aircraft would require enormous amounts of electric power, and the Air Force seemed toknow to create it. Other declassified documents reveal the Air Force had built compact nuclearreactors small enough to fly on an aircraft. It had also experimented with a device known as amagnetohydrodynamic generator (MHD) to extract large amounts of electricity from a fast-movingstream of molten metal. Engineers familiar with such systems say that if MHD units were to becomeunstable, some of the metal circulating in the unit would have to be ejected.

UFO investigators sent a portion of the Ubatuba material to the Air Force for analysis. It was"accidentally" destroyed before tests could be completed.


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A sample of the Ubatuba debris (left) examined under a microscope

(above) revealed a higher level of purity than occurs in nature.

PHOTO (COLOR): Origin Of Ejecta?


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The Trans-En-Provence landing site was carefully documented by the French government.

~~~~~~~~By Jim Wilson tor; Carol Calder; Nick D'Alto; Mike Fillon; John McKelvie and Paul L. Ruben,Reporters

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