How difficult will it be to prove that UAP fragments are from extraterrestrials? Keith Basterfield takes a look.
UAP "fragments"
In recent times, there has been much re-newed interest in the potential "fragments" from Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon; and in particular, the topic of analyses of such material.
To The Stars Academy
Last July, the
To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, launched its A.D.A.M. project which aimed to collect and analyze
"materials reported to have come from advanced aerospace vehicles of unknown origin." Then followed a
series of
blog posts on their website discussing the project.
In September, I wrote
a blog piece about the letting of a US$35,000 contract between TTSA and EarthTech International for the analysis of several "fragments."
At the 27 October, 2018, Centro Ufologico Nazionale UAP conference in Rome, Italy, Luis Elizondo of TTSA, showed
a slide of a collection of images, which he referred to as material in the possession of TTSA, which was being analyzed.
At the March 2019, conference of the
Scientific Coalition for Ufology, held in Huntsville, Alabama, Elizondo again showed that same slide. He stated:
" What makes this material so special? Now, in some cases, this material was told it's special. Through analysis, guess what? Not so special. But some of it is absolutely special. I won't point out which ones on that slide but there are some that are absolutely special and have been briefed to some very, very senior levels of the government, and they do remarkable and extraordinary things and they're built in such a way that to this day we still can't replicate them."
However, to date, there have been no documents released, providing details of the analysis of these "special" materials, and it seems that the public release of any such detail, will not occur until the TTSA/History channel six part series, scheduled to commence in the US at the end of May 2019. It is uncertain, whether or not, TTSA will publish a peer reviewed article in a major materials science journal. While I, in general, support the work being undertaken by the TTSA, the apparent direction for us to learn of the analysis results is hardly a scientific one - simply entertainment.
Lee Speigel
On the
8 January 2019 podcast on the "Open Minds News Radio" program, one of the guests was former Huffington Post journalist, Lee Speigel.
Speigel talked about UAP related materials. Thanks to researcher Joe Murgia,
we have a transcript of Speigel's segment. In part, Speigal says:
"...The number one story, may be, for me...what's still floating around is the idea that there's a lot of competition out there among UFO researchers and scientists over the analysis of alleged fragments or pieces of UFOs. This is a very big story. And even I, recently, had a unique opportunity to see and hold some reportedly, real UFO material that's being analyzed now by scientists that aren't yet ready to go public with their amazing findings. But they will. And I can say...I can say that with total certainty because I was there, in their laboratory... They're gonna release it to science and say "Here's what we've come up with. We can conclude very definitely that some of these fragments were not naturally formed and that they were manufactured by someone... They will be able to conclude that some of these fragments are not from Earth..."
Queried by Alejandro Rojas whether or not he was talking about the TTSA, Speigel responded that no, it was not TTSA he was referring to, and not Robert Bigelow either. Unfortunately, the above, generalized statement fails to add any detail to the topic. Certainly, there was no data provided to back up the statements which Spiegel made. I understand, yet again, similar to the TTSA approach, that Spiegel and partner will report upon the analysis work of the unnamed laboratory, in a feature film to be released later in 2019.
Joe Murgia speculated, that the individuals whom Spiegel was referring to, were Jacques Vallee, and Dr Garry Nolan.
Dr Garry Nolan
Professor Garry Nolan is the Rachford and Carlota A Harris Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
He was interviewed by author and researcher, M J Banias on 29 April 2019. Their conversation mainly involved the areas of Dr Nolan's work with Dr Kit Green and their cohort of patients who had apparently sustained injuries arising from their encounters with the phenomenon; and the work Dr Nolan was undertaking with Jacques Vallee on materials analysis.
Regarding their materials analysis work, I directed the following question to Dr Nolan, through Banias: "Is there a peer reviewed paper anywhere in the near future that the community can expect?"
Dr Nolan gave an extended response, which I will quote in full below:
"Yes...some initial studies showed unusual isotopic ratios and Jacques has talked about them publicly so I'm comfortable talking about that. So what we are doing right now, is I'm personally. I did the work Jacques showed, not the historical stuff Peter Sturrock for instance, here at Stanford had been involved with. Others had done this kind of work as well,and we have confirmed some of that work.
My point is at this stage, alright as much as some of these journals that have published this stuff are good, they are not the journals that anybody is paying attention to. The journals people are paying attention to are like, Nature materials, aeronautical journals. So, we've convinced a couple of those major journals that if we put together a credible paper that looks like a credible conclusion, then they will send it out for peer review. Doesn't mean they will publish it, but will send it out for peer review, to make sure; probably get push back like I got push back in the Atacama, at the beginning, but they made it a better paper. So, that's what we will do. So yes.
So, right now what is going on are confirmations. Taking it round to who are specialists in mass spectrometry, to say, ok, where could I have made a mistake? What could the contaminating artifacts in the information here that tell me; that are leading to me to potentially make a fool of myself?
That's where you basically go to the experts. Sometimes you tell them what it is. Sometimes, you say, hey I've got this stuff, I'm trying to find out what it is. Does this - is this possible? Given we know what this is made of, could I get this by some strange - let's talk about some of the isotopes. I think there's magnesium in a couple of the samples of Jacques that have strange ratios. Are unexpectedly magnesium 26 more likely to bond or less able to be ionized and therefore make it look like, its got a different ratio than it actually is? And only that because that magnesium 26 is in the context of something else in the sample. Nothing to do with aliens nothing, or other wordily anything and it is only to do with the physical structure that makes what we think we're seeing, off.
I'm really talking to other people that I know , who are out there, who are doing this kind of work; be vary careful. A couple of things that we thought were off, have very conventional explanations, and you have to go to the expert, or you will make a fool of yourself. And you will discredit anything that you're trying to do. And the people who are listening, who know what I am - who know who they are, I told this to them privately, but now I'm telling them publicly.
That's why I am interested in the material work that Jacques brought to the table. It's because, of, all the many things things that can be done, that's reproducible. We can cut those samples into many pieces as Jacques would tolerate. Send it to people in laboratories - to confirm it. We've done that. So we're getting these validations and we're checking with the necessary experts. Then, we'll write up a simple paper that will make no claim to anything, other than the fact that here's the composition of the stuff and here's the story of how it was found. End of story.
The hanging question there, is how did it get made? People don't play with isotopic ratios easily. Ask yourself what do people do with isotopic ratios now? What do we modify isotopes for, or what have ewe been doing with isotopes for the last 60 years? Blow stuff up...uranium and plutonium...imaging or killing ...cancer cells...
Chemistry and physics have not caught up with why you might use titanium x versus titanium plus one neutron...what is different about the magnesium ratios in the sample that I know Hal has, and I have a sample that was given to me by Leslie. So, why would somebody do that? The cost to change isotopic ratios is considerable, especially if the providence; some of these materials which date back decades, when the ability to make those changes was so costly that why would you make a big chunk of it and throw it out in the desert?...why would you bother?...
(Talking of the use of the word "alloys by TTSA.) "So I wrote an internal memo to TTSA at the time I was involved with them and said these aren't alloys. These, do not think of them as alloys. We need to change the conversation. You need to call them metamaterials, I'd like to lay claim to the use of that term. These are more complex, if anything, you need to call them ultramaterials because metamaterials are pretty well understood....basically that's atomic architecture...
So, I took some of the material from Jacques to some people at Stanford, and I said - that's interesting, and you tell them a little bit about it; well I have this or that instrument, and I'll get back to you, and tell you something about this, that, the other of it...whether you've seen this in any aeronautical industry materials before. And if they come back and tell me, yes this is something from Pratt and Whitley circa 1955, I'm like, thank you, now I can go do something else..."
Premature disclosure
In a recent document titled
"A preliminary catalogue of alleged "fragments" reportedly associated with sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena where analysis(es) was/were conducted" I offer dozens of cases where such material underwent analysis. The results vary from the mundane, to cases claiming an extraterrestrial origin had been proven.
A classic example of the latter occurred on 4 July 1997, at a conference held in Roswell, New Mexico, when a Dr VernonClark announced the results of his tests on a sample given to Dr Roger Leir in August 1995 by an individual who stated the fragment came from the 1947 Roswell "crash."
VernonClark announced that the sample showed significant variations from normal isotopic composition found on Earth; and that he could only conclude that the sample had been manufactured and was extraterrestrial in origin. Needless to say, UFO researchers celebrated the announcement.
However, in subsequent weeks, VernonClark retreated from this definitive conclusion, citing that he had been misquoted. Yet his published written results were available for anyone to look at. He is quoted as saying "In retrospect, with 20-20 hindsight, I would have preferred to have more work done..."
Twelve years on,VernonClark's results are generally accepted to have been in error, derived from poor analytical techniques.
It seems to me, that most UFO researchers have failed to understand the complexity of the process by which analysis is undertaken. Note that Dr Garry Nolan, in his statement above, said:
"I'm really talking to other people that I know , who are out there, who are doing this kind of work; be vary careful. A couple of things that we thought were off, have very conventional explanations, and you have to go to the expert, or you will make a fool of yourself. And you will discredit anything that you're trying to do. And the people who are listening, who know what I am - who know who they are, I told this to them privately, but now I'm telling them publicly."
Chris Cogwell
Christopher F Cogwell holds a PhD in chemical engineering with a focus on the study of nanomaterials.
In August 2018 he posted a detailed article about the methodology which he considered necessary to be followed when conducting materials analysis. In part he stated:
"We would want to identify if the material has come from outer space by comparing it to similar materials or samples we find on Earth. Does it show significant enough difference to cause us to believe it did not come from our planet?
Second is there evidence that the material has been engineered or designed in some way? Does it show properties or applications that we wouldn't expect to occur naturally, or is it engineered or composed in such a way to give it specific properties?
An third, does it show advanced techniques or knowledge with which we are unfamiliar. Are there super-heavy elements which we have yet to discover here on Earth, does it show crystal structure or solid phases that have not yet been observed by the materials science community, does it show composition and engineering which is beyond the scope of science today?"
His article goes on to describe the types of testing which could be undertaken, and the methodology for such testing.
He concludes:
" As far as can be gleaned from the information available to the general public, it appears that efforts to date concerning the analysis of solids potentially occurring from some unknown civilization have focused on the first class of studies, those concerning the elements making up the material and their isotopes. However, as has been suggested by this work that is only a small portion of the entire picture needed before any definitive conclusions can be made."
Chris Cogwell issued a warning:
"Of particular concern to the interested public should be any study that purports to give evidence without clearly reporting in detail their methodology, potential sources of error, the accuracy of their measurements, and other information required to replicate their results."
Publication
Following upon the finding of any anomaly in one of these samples, the next step is to publish the results, to enable discussion among the scientific and UAP communities. Here lies a difficulty, respectable journals so far, have failed to publish such articles. So, it is of interest to note the approach taken by Dr Garry Nolan and Jacques Vallee in their joint work.
In summary
The words of Chris Cogwell; Dr Garry Nolan; Jacques Vallee (in private correspondence to the author) and others, urges us to take care when examining the results claimed by some UFO researchers, and even scientists such as Dr VernonClark, regarding analyses of UAP related material.
What is needed, is a multi-pronged methodology along the lines proposed by Chris Cogwell, and a well documented chain of custody for samples. Then, if a sample does indeed indicate genuine anomalies, along the lines Cogwell suggests; and the full results; are available in an article in a peer reviewed materials science or similar journal, we may be able to claim that we do indeed have a "fragment"from the phenomenon.
Until then, in my opinion, we need to beware of undocumented proclamations of "special" materials which do "remarkable and extraordinary things." - Keith Basterfield