Meta Materials From UFOs

[NorCal Dave]

The claim of recovered materials from UFOs, crashed or otherwise, comes in various forms and pops up in various UFO/UAP related threads. These claims can also derail other threads as the notion of recovered meta materials is a small or tangential part of a greater claim. The case of whistleblower David Grusch comes to mind. One of his many claims involves reverse engineering of "materials of non-human origins", which can lead to Gary Nolen and Jaque Vallee's work on supposed UFO material and then Tom DeLong's TTSA (To The Stars Acadamy)'s claim of meta-materials and onto the late Art Bells' collection of "Art's Parts". All of which can get off the main topic in a hurry.

I'm not sure each above mentioned claim needs its own thread, as the central claims are pretty similar: "These are exotic meta-materials from UFOs and we've tested them". And as we'll see, it's often the same bits of stuff. So, it seemed a discussion on the notion of alien meta-materials that can be referenced when the subject comes up in other threads might be a good idea. At the very least, when alien meta-materials is mentioned we can quickly find and copy the relevant information from a single source.

There is a short thread here from 2019 that concerned TTSA's claims of having meta-materials and what they were going to do with them, so I'll only touch on a few items about TTSA. More importantly, it became clear in this thread that what DeLong's TTSA had and was talking about is Art's Parts:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ttsas-metamaterials.10840/

Art's Parts

The most well-known collection of supposedly alien meta-materials is Art's Parts. These were bits of material sent to the late Art Bell by an anonymous listener to Art Bell's radio talk show Coast to Coast AM. It was a syndicated late-night show that often delved into fringe subjects including UFOs and the paranormal.

The person that sent the materials claimed they were recovered from the alien space craft that crashed in Roswell in 1947:

Here is the text of the letter that accompanied the materials. I'm including the entire thing as this has been on the Wayback machine for quite a while now, so if it goes away, we'll have it here. It's a fun and quick read, but I've bolded the important bits. Also, I'm just concerned with the materials for this thread and not the various other wild claims in these letters:

April 10th, 1996

Art Bell
P.O. Box 4755
Pahrump, Nevada 89041-4755

Dear Mr. Bell,

I've followed your broadcasts over the last year or so, and have been considering whether or not to share with you and your listeners, some information related to the Roswell UFO crash.

My grandfather was a member of the Retrieval Team, sent to the crash site, just after the incident was reported. He died in 1974, but not before he had sat down with some of us, and talked about the incident.

I am currently serving in the military, and hold a Security Clearance, and do NOT wish to "go public", and risk losing my career and commission.

Nonetheless, I would like to briefly tell you what my own grandfather told me about Roswell. In fact, I enclose for your safekeeping "samples" that were in the possession of my grandfather until he died, and which I have had since his own estate was settled. As I understand it, they came from the UFO debris, and were among a large batch subsequently sent to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio from New Mexico.

My grandfather was able to "appropriate" them, and stated that the metallic samples, are "pure extract aluminum". You will note that they appear old & tempered, and they have been placed in tissue-paper, and in baggies for posterity.

I have had them since 1974, and after considerable thought and reflection, give them to you. Feel free to share them with any of your friends in the UFO Research Community.

I have listened to many people over the years discuss Roswell and the crash events, as reported by many who were either there or who heard about it from eyewitnesses.

The recent Roswell movie, was similar to my grandfather's own account, but a critical element was left out, and it is that element which I would like to share.

As my grandad stated, the Team arrived at the crash site just after the AAF/USAF reported the ground zero location. They found two dead occupants, hurled free of the Disc.

A lone surviving occupant, was found within the Disc, and it was apparant, it's left leg was broken. There was a minimal radiation contamination, and it was quicky dispersed with a water/solvent wash, and soon the occupant was dispatched for medical assistance and isolation. The bodies were sent to the Wright-Patterson AFB, for dispersal. The debris was also loaded onto three trucks which finished the on-load just before the sunset.

Grandad was part of the Team that went with the surviving occupant. The occupant communicated via telepathic means. It spoke perfect english, and communicated the following:

The Disc was a "probeship" dispatched from a "launchship" that was stationed at the dimensional gateway to the Terran Solar System, 32 light years from Terra. They had been conducting operations on Terra for over 100 years.

Another group were exploring Mars, and Io.

Each "probeship" carried a crew of three. A "launchship" had a crew of (100) one-hundred.

The Disc that crashed, had collided with a meteor in orbit of Terra, and was attempting to compensate it's flight vector, but because of the collision, the inter-atmospheric propulsion system malfunctioned, and the occupants sent out a distress signal to their companions on Mars. The "launchship" commander made the decision to authorize an attempted soft-landing on the New Mexican desert. At the same time, the inter-atmospheric propulsion system had a massive electrical burn-out, and the Disc was soon virtually helpless.

There was another option available to the occupants, but it involved activating the Dimensional powerplant for deep space travel. However, it opens an energy vortex around the Disc for 1,500 miles in all directions. Activating the Dimensional powerplant, would have resulted in the annihilation of the states of New Mexico, Arizona, California and portions of Mexico. Possibly even further states would have been affected.

Thus, the occupants, chose to ride the ship down, and hope for the best. They literally sacrificed their lives, rather than destroy the populations within their proximity.

The Dimensional powerplant was self-destructed, and the inter-atmospheric propulsion system was also deactivated, to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of the Terrans. This was done in accordance with their standing orders in regards to any compromise with contact experiences.

Grandad spent a total of 26 weeks in the Team that examined and debriefed the lone survivor of the Roswell crash. Grandad's affiliation with the "project" ended, when the occupant was to be transported to a long-term facility. He was placed on-board a USAF Transport aircraft, that was to be sent to Washington, D.C.

The aircraft and all aboard disappeared under mysterious and disturbing circumstances, enroute to Washington, D.C.

It may interest you that three Fighter aircraft, dispatched to investigate a distress call from the Transport experienced many electrical malfunctioning systems failures, as they entered the airspace of the transports last reported location. No crash or debris of the Transport was ever found. The Team was disbanded.

Well, I realize I have likely shocked you with this bizzare and incredible account, and seeking to remain "unknown" likely doesn't do anything for my credibility ...eh? And the metal "samples" only will likely add to the controversy.

But, I know you will take this with a "grain of salt", and I don't blame you, Mr. Bell.

I just hope that you can understand, my reasons and my own desire to maintain my career and commission.

I am passing through South Carolina with an Operational Readiness Mobility Exercise, and will mail this just prior to this Exercise, possibly from the Charleston area.

I will listen to your broadcast, to receive any acknowledging or confirmation, that you have received this package.

This letter and the contents of the package are given to you, with the hope that it helps contribute to discussion on the subject of UFO Phenomena.

I agree with Neil Armstrong, a good friend of mine, who dared to say, at the WHITE HOUSE no less, that there are things "out there", which boggle the mind and are far beyond our ability to comprehend.

Sign me,
A Friend

External content from here unless otherwise noted:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010614020521/http://www.artbell.com/roscrash.html

Bell had someone examine these samples and concluded they were in fact aluminum:

A small piece of the vent on one corner was removed for analysis. One edge of this piece corresponds to a slit edge. An SEM image is seen in photo 6. EDS showed it to consist primarily of aluminum (Fig. 8). This was similar for the three different sections that seemed to have a different textural appearance. Granules seen at high magnification exhibited the EDS pattern shown in Fig. 9. In this case the granules showed a content similar to the metal strip granules -- i.e. aluminum with small amounts of iron, manganese, calcium and silicon.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010815220312/http://www.artbell.com/rosreprt.htm

This was talked about on Bell's show and prompted "A Friend" to send a follow up letter which again I'll include all of for posterity, but I've bolded the relevant parts:

April 22, 1996

Art Bell
P.O. Box 4755
Pahrump, Nevada 89041-4755

Mr. Bell,

At great risk, I am writing you in regards to the package sent your way. I had opportunity to listen to a tape recording of the radio broadcasts, when I returned home after having participated in the Mobility Readiness Exercises.

My son, a Senior in college recorded them for me.

I must say that I was somewhat surprised by the negative and closed-minded responses directed your way, by some of your own listeners.

You seemed to indicate that receiving the package has vastly upset your life, and in this I would like to say that wasn't my intention, and I offer my apologies.

Further information regarding the Roswell Crash, and my own grandfathers affiliation would likely be potentially beneficial in your efforts at correlation & verification.

In this regards, I can only say, based on past conversations on the subject with Grandad, that the Retrieval Team, consisted of three segments. The On-site Team, the In-House Team, and the Security Team. The credentials of the team members weren't only military related. There were individuals with backgrounds from The University of Colorado,Office of Naval Research, AAF/USAF & US Army, UCLA and Atomic Energy Commision & National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics & Office of Scientific Research and Developement. Additionally, there were Consultants from England, France and Russia involved.

Grandad stated their own analysis of the samples indicated it as pure extract aluminum, as a conductor for the electromagnetic fields created in the propulsion systems. However, critically-needed data was "eliminated" by the self-destruct mechanisms on the disc vehicle itself. Furthermore, the occupant-survivor of the crash, refused to disclose technical information, despite a series of interrogative attempts to extract technological data. No means could be found to secure the information.

There were always two Security Team members present at every face-to-face meeting with the survivor. The survivor had the ability to deduce thoughts and questions, prior to them being asked. Sometimes it became frustrating.

The Disc itself was literally dissected, and it was discovered that the propupsion system had actually fused together the many interior components. There were control-type devises forged in the shape of the alien hand, which were assumed as controls and activation surfaces.

What is today fiber-optic technology, was part and parcel of the alien technology within the control panels, albeit fused and melted when the self-destruct mechanism was activated.

There were Westinghouse-affiliated persons on the Team, and Grandad always thought, some of them had gone back, with the knowledge and incorporated it into the future research with the phone systems.

Of course the Military was concerned as to the ability of the Aliens to enter our atmosphere at will, undetected, and thusly they recommended to the President that a Space Program be set into motion, and that a system of satellites be placed into orbit by 1957, and this satellite system be patched into the then DEW Line early warning system...which became later NORAD.

Grandad stated that it was his opinion, that NORAD was formed not only to track possible ICBM's from hostile nations, but as a established Detection System for UFO craft. That is why the NASA Space Agency has been "incorporated" by and large with our Armed Forces, and there are so many "classified" missions.

This is my oponion, but Grandad prophesied such occuring as far back as 1971.

Well, I am scheduled to travel back to Charleston AFB and then Pope AFB. I'll mail this from somewhere in SC.

I'll not likely communicate again. My wife is concerned, as am I that the Intelligence agencies will put two & two together, so it is inadvisable to further communicate this information. I hope you understand my position.

I could likely face a courts martial or sedition charges, for stating some of this information, and opinions.

You would be surprised at the extent of internal policies on this subject, and the consequences for current commissioned officers talking about UFO Phenomena.

I was surprised by Edgar Mitchell's statements of recent date and I imagine there are many involved with Roswell, who are a bit upset at events underway.

However, he is a man of outstanding character & integrity, and knows whereof he speaks, as do quite a few other astronauts.

I wish you all the best, and will be listening.

I commend your courage and integrity.

I hope your listeners understand, that the subject of Roswell has great potential at extrapolating the truth on UFO's, and what has come to be known as a cosmic watergate, is only the tip of an iceberg.

Grandad said that when the truth does come out, humanity will be changed beyond comprehension. He also said many on the In-House Team lobbied to release the information to the public. Not all of them were paranoid in trusting the public with the truth.

Sign me,Still

A Friend

So, whatever "A Friend" sent, he seemed to believe it was aluminum or pure aluminum as Bell's people concluded. Despite his fear of being caught or court marshaled, he in fact did communicate with Bell again in an undated letter. I've bolded relevant parts:

No Date (arrived May 28, 1996)

Mr. Bell,

I have listened with interests, to the ongoing reports on the samples I sent your way.

I noted that the Researcher discussing the testing of the samples noted that basically, it is merely Aluminum.

Slight variations on the testing, but indistinguishable from "normal" Aluminum.

Actually, this is precisely the same initial findings of Grandad's Team. However, I neglected to include metallic samples of the exterior of the crashed Roswell disc.

I now include the enclosed, and can only say that these scrapings came from the exterior underside of the Disc itself. It literally was a "shell-like" sheilding of the Disc. Brittle and layered, almost with a prefabricated design and placing.

Keep in mind Mr Bell, that these are the last of Grandad's samples. They have sat for years inside a closet, with his personal effects.

Because of certain concerns, I will not be contacting you on this matter. Perhaps, I am a bit paranoid, but I do have a family & career to think about. I hope you understand.

Hope these last samples are helpful.

Of course, I will be listening.

A Friend

So again, the original samples are aluminum, but now he includes a new sample from the hull(?) or exterior of the alien craft. It's described as "layered". This appears to be the bismuth/magnesium layered sample that became the well-known Art's Part and was championed by Coast to Coast AM regular and UFO researcher Linda Multon Howe. "A Friend" sent a letter to her and maybe Bell as well, around the time he sent the sample to Bell. Again, presented here in full, with bolding as needed, but it is an interesting read for anyone that's looked into UFOlogy:

May 25, 1996

Dear Ms Howe,

I'm not certain if this is how your last name is spelled. Nonetheless, I wanted to "touch base" with you, personally. So I have taken this opportunity to do so.

I'm the individual who has dispatched the "artifacts" of Roswell Disc debris, to talk show Art Bell.

While I was on a flight to Hungary, with Joint Endeavor; my wife acquired your address on a "Dreamland" Broadcast. I've been able until this deployment to listen with interests to your comments & opinions, as to the "artifacts", and noted some apprehension as to the materials, itself. This is fully understandable.

When I decided over 6 months ago, to turn these "artifacts" over to the UFO Research Community, I decided that it would be accomplished by allowing Art Bell to be the mediator/trustee of the "artifacts". Partly because of his record of complete neutrality on these matters, but moreso, because I thought the "artifacts" safety would be insured completely. I regret the undue & unwarranted turmoil, caused to the Bell household, but still feel justified in my initial decision. I've been looking over Grandad's journal, and wanted to share a few brief extractions with you and Mr Bell.

Firstly, I note that the intent of your own efforts as to the exams of the "artifacts" is to confirm some sort of other-world extraterrestial, source of the metals.

This was the initial aspect of the original exams. But, what came to light was that the metal was virtually indiscernable to Earth metals. According to Grandad's notations: "this was to insure that in the event of crash or capture, that no verification as to the alien network or the homeworld confederation could be proven, and a compromise of the Alien directives transpired". Apparantly, "the probeships were constructed with metallic base metals, indistinguishable from Terran metals, as a protective measure & security safeguard".

There was a drawback to this, "a negative consequence was that the probeships would be vulnerable to radar interferance. The Aliens remedy to this was to insure the probeships maintained high velocity trajectories, and activated these velocities upon entering the Terran atmosphere".

Most of the interatmosphere operations, occured in the Western Hemisphere, and in the areas of Europe & Asia, with populations consisting of "network selectees". This was a term that the Aliens used to identify persons destined for contact. These contacts were "conceived & predestined prior to birth" and was "scheduled to be accelerated & increased throughout the three decades prior to 2000 A.C.E., when the network would initiate the "transition".

"Transition" was a term that meant full-contact, occuring around the Terran year 2025.

All this information was acquired from the sole surviving Alien occupant, and was correlated with information retrieved from the databanks of the command console panels within the Disc command center. It took a full year and a half to decipher the Alien language, which resembled ancient Babylonian script. But, with the help of World War II cryptologists who worked with the War Department, the code texts were broken, and deciphered. All the results were shared with the Offices of those overseeing The "Project" as it was known, among them General Curtis Lemay, Secretary of State George Marshall, and President Truman, and the Intelligence operatives, who oversaw Security for the Roswell "Project".

Most of these activities transpired at Wright-Patterson, and would result "in an extensive reformatting of the entire policy developments, regarding potentiol Alien Contact. Upon advice of the "Project" directors, the decision was made to incorporate a discredation campaign on those claiming Alien Contact, and those who advocated Alien existance."

Furthermore, the "Project" directors, recommended that the U.N. be granted overall command authority over the "Project". Both Secretary of Satate Marshall and his successor Dean Acheson argued against this recommendation. President Truman personally visited Wright-Patterson on a number of occasions.

So, you see Ms Howe, that there is alot more to this Roswell "Project" and "incident", then many can even begin to discern or comprehend.

Try to imagine as Grandad, used to say; that it is 1947, and the USA has just survived a global struggle, millions had been killed or injured, and suddenly, even as the dawn of the Atomic age came to being, that the existance of Alien Life has been accidently discovered. Many facets of inquiry were taken into account, and some of the most brilliant & accomplished minds in Government would do anything to ascertain the exact extent and perspective purpose of these Aliens.

What was once considered fiction, was proven reality. Absolutely every attempt was made to exhaust the efforts at understanding & comprehending this extraordinary event. It was decided to keep the information secret, classified and beyond retrieval.

It has been almost 50 years, and the secret has been steadily maintained, protected, and insured. WHY?

Grandad was one who lobbied for full-disclosure. He understood that release of the information could result in chaos, of a sort in civilization. Because of his concern for the safety of his family, he complied with the secrecy oath.

It wasn't until the mid 1960's that he talked with anyone on the "Project". He spoke with one particular person, who had promised confidentiality, and was faithful to that promise. You may have known that person: Dr J. Allen Hynek.

Other than that brief discourse with Dr Hynek, Grandad was silent.

The year 2000 approaches. It is time that the Roswell secret is disclosed. The weight of the evidence will demand a verdict. That verdict will be rendered by the people. Millions have witnessed the UFO Phenomena in the last 50 years.

Virtually thousands have claimed contact with Aliens. What happened at Roswell was a beginning. Not a beginning of the end of civilization, as some feared if the information was disclosed. But, actually a beginning of beginnings.

One can argue the impact of an accidental discovery of this magnitude.

50 years of UFO Phenomena have occurred for a purpose. A stellar purpose predetermined since that first A-Bomb was detonated in New Mexico.

Humanity has survived in spite of itself. Because of itself.

I believe that the "Transition" Grandad wrote of is underway. What I've shared with Art Bell, you, and the entire world was done in Honor of a quiet and courageous gentleman who was a witness to the wonders of this Universe.

Our world is changing.

Nothing can stop that. Nothing.

This concludes my own part in what lies ahead. I now go back to my career & responsibilities, to my family and my own life. I have dared to risk, and no matter the consequenced, I am confident Grandad would support this action.

You have the "evidence", some have sought for and demanded.

Of course, for some it will not be enough. Discount it, discredit it, so be it. It matters little in the final analysis...sound & fury signifying nothing.

The Truth will come out about Roswell.

Indeeed, it has come out. Was it not a Honorable man who once stated: "Ye shall know the Truth, and it shall set you free"?

I wish you and Art Bell, all the Best!

A Friend

Once again, we have the notion that these materials, while from a crashed alien craft at Roswell, are indistinguishable from Earthly materials. Now were told this is for security, a form of alien camouflage should they crash. Note also we have about 2 more years to wait for complete contact.

The initial report about the second set of samples concluded that it was layers of magnesium, zinc and bismuth (bold by me):

Samples of material newly acquired by Art were obtained (from Art) on May 31,1996. These were very different from the aluminum specimens received earlier. The material was in two main pieces (see Photo 1): one, designated sample 1, was approximately 6 cm by 3 cm and about 3-4 mm in thickness; the other, sample 2, was about 5 cm by 2.5 cm and again a 3-4 thickness. Sample 1 weighed 6.23 gm; and sample 2 weighed 6.9 gm. The shape of each sample was quite irregular, and the thickness in each case varied in different areas. It is emphasized that these measurements are meant to provide only some notion of the general size of the specimens.

Each sapmle had a "silvery," shiny side with a rough (granular) appearance. The other side was blackish-gray. Looking at the samples edge-on, numerous layers can be seen. The samples were hard but brittle, and a few small pieces could be broken off using a small hand vice and manual pressure. Two such samples broken off were analyzed (side by side) by scanning electron microscopy (SEM); one was shiny side up-- the other was dark side up. Photo 2 shows a portion of both pieces; the shiny side up is in the lower right, while the dark side is in the upper left. Photo 3 shows the shiny side-up piece and includes a view of the edge where the layering can be noted. Photo 4 and photo 5 show higher magnifications of the shiny side. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) revealed the the shiny side contained more than 95% magnesium (Mg) and a small amount (2-3%) of zinc (Zn) (Fig. 1). The dark side contained a significant amount of bismuth (Bi) (Fig. 2).

A small piece was embedded in epoxy, cut through, and polished in such a way that a cross section of the layering could be visualized. Photos 6,7, and 8 show images of the cross section at different magnifications. In these cases we utilized a backscattering mode which shows heavier elements to be brighter than less-heavy elements. As seen in the photos there are layers of lighter (less bright) material separated by much thinner layers of heavier (brighter) material. When EDS scans were done on the lighter material, a high level of magnesium was observed, again with a small amount of zinc (Fig. 3); whereas scans of the bright material showed a significant content of bismuth (Fig. 4). The thickness of the "bismuth layers" appear to be only a few microns. As seen in photo 6 and photo 7, there are apparent "bismuth layers" that appear less bright than others. Possibly this relates to a lower concentration of bismuth, or the bands occur slightly below the surface being examined. Additional studies will be necessary to determine which, if either, of these interpretations is correct.

Thus the material appears to represent layers of a substance consisting mainly of magnesium and a small amount of zinc separated by thin layers containing a high bismuth content.

Ms. Howe also took the samples to a Travis Taylor for further testing, described here:

Here is the original camcorder video by Travis Taylor photographed thursday September 12, with Emory Scientific small Van de Graaf generator. Webster's definition of a Van de Graaf generator is "An electrostatic generator in which electric charge is either removed from or transferred to a large hollow spherical electrode by a rapidly moving belt, in some configurations producing potentials over a million volts, and used with an acceleration tube as an electron or ion accelerator." Inventor was Robert Jemison Van de Graaf, American physicist, 1901-1967.

This demonstration by Travis Taylor involved about 500,000 volts of electrostatic field with bismuth/magnesium piece compared to a piece of aluminum cut from a pop can.

Starting with 00:00 at first frame of colored picture forward, the sequences are:

• 00:00 Intro
• :43 Close-up Van de Graaf generator first with bismuth/mag piece on it. Piece jumps vertically upward - normal influence of a strong ellectrostatic field.
• 1:20 Puts aluminun piece in for comparision. Does same thing.
• 2:10 Puts plastic lid on generator to act as an insulator.
• 2:47 Bis/Mag moves a little by itself, sideways, not up and down. Dark bis side up.
• 3:00 Travis puts his index finger down through field to change shape of field lines to see if more effect on bis/mag. Some erratic movement toward and away from hisfinger.
• 3:45 Tries metal electrode with no significant result.
• 4:00 More electrode, moves a little.
• 4:20 Bis/Mag moves by itself in considerable sideways motion and falls off insulator cap. (637K Executable File)
• 4:29 Aluminum on insulator - no movement at all.
• 5:07 Bis/Mag with black bismuth side up. Nothing much happens.
• 5:20 Travis flips piece over so silver magnesium is on top - then there is more sideways motion when his finger enters the field. (601K Executable File)
• 6:20 Aluminum piece back on insulator cap; Travis using finger. But aluminum does not move around like bis/mag.
• 6:50 Travis summary.
• 8:30 END.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010614020521/http://www.artbell.com/roscrash.html

This is obviously a description of a video of the experiment, and as it's on the Wayback machine I can't get anything to display. Others may have better luck. Maybe more interesting is the scientist is Travis Taylor, though he's not referred to as "Dr." Taylor.

However, there is a video from '04 with Linda Howe giving a presentation about the material in question. It's a bit of a slog, but I tried to queue it up (42:56) below where she talks about asking for help on the radio, presumably on Bell's Coast to Coast AM and gets response from an engineer and physicist from Huntsville AL named Travis Taylor that offers to help her. She then plays an audio recording of him and then shows some clips from the experiment. It looks like the 4:20 timestamp in the above quote where the sample jumps around and moves. She also claims the experiment took place in 1996:


Source: https://youtu.be/pfLUAiTnlcw?t=2576



The Dr. Travis Taylor from the UAP Task Force and Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch didn't receive his first PhD until 1999:

Taylor earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Auburn University in 1991, before going on to study at University of Alabama, Huntsville where he earned a MS in physics in 1994, a PhD in optical science and engineering in 1999, and a MSE in mechanical and aerospace engineering in 2001. He then completed a MS in astronomy in 2004 at the University of Western Sydney before earning a second PhD from University of Alabama, Huntsville in aerospace engineering in 2012.[3][4] [5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_S._Taylor

The voice on the audio tape sounds a lot like the Travis Taylor that appears on TV nowadays, he has the same name and is in Huntsville. If Howe is to be believed, Taylor was looking to get into UFO/fringe stuff back in the '90s, going so far as volunteering and offering his services to UFO/fringe media personalities.

I'll note too, that in all of this, Linda Moulton Howe takes the above copied letters from "A Friend" concerning the origin of these samples as prima facia. The samples were collected by a member of the Roswell crashed saucer recovery team in White Sands NM, that's a fact. The layered sample was collected from the hull or outer shell of the crashed craft, that's a fact. These materials are alien in origin before any testing is done, that's a fact. The testing is being done to understand them, not confirm that they are alien, because that's already been established by the letters describing their origins.

All of these experiments seem to conclude that Art's Parts consisted of pieces of aluminum or some layered pieces of magnesium, zinc and bismuth. That is, they are all earth type elements with nothing particularly exotic about them. The big claim became that the aluminum was very pure and nobody on earth could create the layered magnesium and bismuth sample. Therefore, it was alien and very anomalists.

At least one of the people Howe gave the sample to for testing disagrees with her finding it an anomaly:

...ufowatchdog.com just wants to remind folks of a little known scientific report compiled at the request of Linda Howe. In the report seen below, scientific technologist Nicholas A. Reiter examined the alleged UFO crash debris, he also successfully replicated the metal and presented Howe with a sample. ufowatchdog.com was told by Reiter that Howe reportedly scoffed at the results of the report because the replicated material was not 100% "exactly" like the alleged UFO crash debris Howe has been advertising as being mysterious. Reiter stated in a letter to ufowatchdog.com, " [Linda's] opinion was that what I had offered had no resemblance to her sample. But she never did make any detailed and accurate reference to it either."

Reiter also mentioned that Howe was reporting the mystery metal would move when high voltage was applied to it. Reiter stated that a piece of a soda can, or just about any metal for that matter, would move with enough voltage running through it.

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/howeufodebris.htm

Note also, the suggestion that running voltage through any metal can make it jump. This an obvious reference to the Travis Taylor experiment mentioned above. If true and if in the experiment only the layered sample moved around, was Taylor engaging in a bit of scientific theater even back then?

The ufowatchdaog.com had the full report from Reiter with important excerpts below:

A Tracor Northern 5400 EDS X ray analyzer was used to examine compositions of both silvery and blackish regions. The silvery region is shown to be relatively pure Mg, with a small signal for Zn; perhaps indicating about 2 to 3% of the latter. The blackish region appears to be primarily Bi. Please reference attached EDS print-outs. Again, this corroborates results from earlier EDS and SIMS work done elsewhere.

Confirms Howes previous EDS and SIMS testing as to what the sample was.

The larger artifact portion was tested with a Baird Atomic 914-434 Ratemeter (Geiger Counter). No indications of radioactivity were noted.

It's not radioactive.

Questions had been raised by LMH as to whether the materials in the artifact were of common (predominant or stable) isotope. The only testing possible at this location for this purpose was a simple Archimedian volume versus weight test. The volume of the large artifact portion was determined by displacement of water in a pipette. Correcting for estimated volumes of Zn and Bi, a calculated weight was derived for the artifact, given the textbook densities for Mg24 , Zn, and Bi. This value was calculated to be .5155g. The artifact was then weighed with a Stanton CL1 lab balance, and actual weight over three trials was found to be .5115g, about 0.7% lighter than the calculated value. From this, we may say that the artifact, while possibly containing small percentages of heavier Mg isotopes, does not appear to be primarily composed of Mg25 or Mg26.

No strange isotopes of Mg seem to be present. More on isotopes latter with Dr. Nolen.

A Fluke 79 DVM was used to look for any voltage potentials or currents which (by some hypotheses) might be produced by the layering of dissimilar metals or other more unusual mechanisms. None were detected in the range of the meter.

No current or voltage in the sample.

It had been suggested that the layered structure of the artifact resembled proposed structures for high temperature filamentary superconductors. A small NdFeB super magnet was used in an attempt to elicit a Meissner Effect reaction with the artifact, both at room temperature, and in a beaker of liquid nitrogen. No effect was noticed.

Not superconducting.

When testing for unusual properties there was a lot of:

No unusual effects or responses were noted.

No fluorescence or unusual response was noted.

No unusual responses were noted.

Howe seemed to have told that the layered sample may have been part of a "lifting" or maybe anti-gravity device that weighs less when voltage was applied to it. Maybe even floats if enough voltage was applied, which Reiter responded to:

It had been suggested to LMH that the artifact structure was possibly indicative of a hypothetical propulsion system, and that extremely high DC potentials applied to the metal structure would cause it to lose weight! To test this idea, the artifact was mounted on a plastic stand, which in turn was placed on a Mettler BasBal 2400 digital lab balance. A very thin lead wire was attached to the artifact with a snippet of conductive tape, and then connected to a HV source. Two sources were used, a +/- 15,000V DC, 60VA supply (GE 9T63Y2226G2) and a small Van De Graaf generator providing about 30 to 50 kV electrostatic potential.

In either case, no weight changes within the resolution of the balance (10mg) were noted when the HV sources were turned on. However, according to LMH's source, potentials over 1MV might be needed to cause weight loss (?!).

No mention of who the source is. But there is also this paragraph from the end of the report:

Claims were made by a Tesla coil enthusiast in Alabama that the portion of the artifact in his possession acted strangely and tried to levitate in the presence of the electrostatic field of a Van de Graaf generator and a radio frequency source. We did perform a separate replication here, and found that our metal fragment danced about as well in the field of a Van de Graaf. And so did a piece of aluminum foil! Please understand that just about any small unattached mass will dance in the field of a 200,000 volt source! The mythos grew…

As we'll see, DeLong's TTSA made similar claims about the material being part of a "lifting" device. The above quote seems to be linked to Taylor's experiments and local, though he's not named. Could it be that the idea, still popular in some circles today, about Art's Part having "lifting" properties traces back to Travis Taylor long before he would show up on TV and at Skinwalker Ranch?

Reiter concluded:

At the most basic of levels, we would freely state that the artifact portion provided by LMH does NOT seem to be composed of elements or compounds which are unknown. Nor is it composed of alloys that appear to be of a purity or combination beyond the scope of current material science. The artifact bears a strong resemblance to irregular layered residue often found in large physical vapor deposition (PVD) coaters. This family of filming processes includes sputtering, E-beam, and resistively heated thermal evaporation; all common vacuum processes used widely in industry.

The remaining unusual aspect of the artifact is quite simply the combination of Mg and Bi in a single structure.

To date, I have been unable to find any references to uses of Mg and Bi together in one process or product! LMH has claimed that officials at Dow, one of the largest Mg producers in the world, are unaware of any use of Bi in their manufacturing processes.

My own opinion is that the artifact probably represents a curious piece of industrial by-product from the thin films industry or a Mg casting plant. However, until a match-up is found, I will not rule out the possibility of a more unusual origin.

Then followed up a few years later:

In 2000, one last revelation came our way on the origin of the artifact. The combination of bismuth and magnesium had eluded us for four years. But then one day, we found a reference to an obscure industrial process used in the refinement of lead. The process, called the Betterton-Krohl Process, uses molten magnesium floated over the surface of liquid lead. The magnesium sucks up, or pulls bismuth impurities out of the lead! Often, the magnesium is used over and over again…

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/howeufodebris.htm

It should be noted that Reider is not materials scientist or specialist as far as I can tell, and I found afew suggestions that he was into anti-gravity type stuff and had down workd for Howe in the past. But he did explain his tests and shared his results which Howe choose to ignor:

Odd that Howe would report everything showing the piece to be unusual, yet not report on the conclusions of the report found below. On a side note, the scientific technologist that compiled this report at the request of Howe is the same scientific technologist Howe used to examine the bogus Brazil UFO Abduction. Howe wasn't apparently satisfied with those results and chose to use someone else to examine the materials after Reiter and another scientist concluded there was nothing unusual about the evidence. Howe went on to champion that case in spite of an analysis done by two scientists she has used in the past without question.

One last note from this, ufowatchdog.com copied and pasted an advertisement for DVDs of Howe's lecture, presumably the one in the YouTube video above, so after 2004. It included this interesting blurb (bold by me):

" SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE: INVESTIGATIVE UFO SCIENCE AND BISMUTH/MAGNESIUM LAYERING OF ARTIFACT FROM WHITE SANDS, NEW MEXICO IN 1947, with Linda Moulton Howe. Show me the evidence! Find out what it is like to investigate hard evidence when your own government says there is nothing there, universities are scared to use their resources, foundations will not provide funding and peer review science is closed off. The amazing tale of a unique layered metal allegedly removed from a wedge-shaped aerial vehicle of unknown origin at White Sands, New Mexico, in 1947 "I have basically exhausted every resource that I have ever tried to use from about 1940 to now. I have found no reference, even in government research, for bismuth/magnesium layers. This material didn't just make itself. It had to come from somewhere. ...And nobody's told anyone about this material!" Travis Taylor, Physicist working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Redstone Army Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama. In her presentation Linda will have a physical sample of the unidentified layered metal for the workshop audience to see and touch, plus video and audio excerpted from her 9-year effort to find a source in government, military or civilian sector anywhere in the world with knowledge about layering 1-4 microns of pure bismuth with 100-200 microns of nearly pure magnesium. For more information visit www.Earthfiles.com XCon-728V o UPC 8 82917 07283 3 o 72 min o VHS Video o $24.95 +++ XCon-728D o UPC 8 82917 07289 5 o 72 min o DVD Disk o $24.95 "

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/howeufodebris.htm

Not only do we have Travis Taylor again, but it mentions him working for the DIA. The DIA is where AASWAP would eventually operate under James Lacatski. Hmmm.

What can be said about Art's Parts, is there is nothing unearthly about them. They are composed of elements found here on earth. They do not seem to exhibit any exotic properties or any special features other than the layering of magnesium and bismuth. IF the MgBi layered sample is industrial waste from the Betterton-Krohl process, than Howe's inability to find anybody that can make it may be a result of not looking in the right place. Note in the blurb above Howe claims:

I have found no reference, even in government research, for bismuth/magnesium layers. This material didn't just make itself. It had to come from somewhere. ...And nobody's told anyone about this material!

In the video above she plays recordings of her talking to people at places like Dow Chemical, the largest producer of Mg and others that all say they don't make anything like a layered MgBi product. Which is probably true, because if the sample is a bit of industrial waste from the Betterton-Krohl process, she should have been talking to lead smelters:

Lead is usually smelted in a blast furnace, using the lead sinter produced in the sintering process and coke to provide the heat source.

The crude lead bullion, containing significant quantities of copper will then undergo 'copper drossing'.

The lead from the blast furnace, called lead bullion, then undergoes the drossing process.

Finally, the molten lead is refined. Pyrometallurgical methods are usually used to remove the remaining non-lead components of the mixture, for example the Betterton-Kroll process and the Betts electrolytic process. The non-lead metals are usually sold to other metal processing plants. The refined lead may be made into alloys or directly cast.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_smelting

The Betterton-Kroll Process is a pyrometallurgical process for refining lead from lead bullion (lead that still contains significant amounts of impurities). Developed by William Justin Kroll in 1922, the Betterton–Kroll process is one of the final steps in conventional lead smelting. After gold, copper, and silver are removed from the lead, significant amounts of bismuth and antimony remain. The Betterton–Kroll process is used to remove these impurities. In the process, calcium and magnesium are added to the molten lead at temperatures around 380 °C. The calcium and magnesium react with the bismuth and antimony in the bullion to form alloys with a higher melting point, which then can be skimmed off of the surface.

The alloys produced have a melting point greater than the rest of the metal, so they form a solid film, or dross, on the surface that can be skimmed off.[3] Molten lead can remain trapped in the dross, so the dross is often hydraulically pressed in order to squeeze out any remaining lead.[7] Through this process, the bismuth in solution can be reduced to under 0.01 wt. %(percent by weight).[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betterton–Kroll_process

Even then, most of the dross is then treated again to recover the bismuth so it can be sold:

After the dross is skimmed off, it can be treated to recover the bismuth. The most common process for this is chlorination of the calcium-magnesium-bismuth alloy.[8] In the chlorination process, chlorine reacts with other metals in the dross and leaves behind high-purity bismuth

And this is for lead from ore, while most lead is recycled:

Most of the lead produced comes from secondary sources. Lead scrap includes lead-acid batteries, cable coverings, pipes, sheets and lead coated, or terne bearing, metals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_smelting

The biggest producer of lead in the US closed many of its smelting operations in the last 20 years:

Following the closure of the Herculaneum smelter, metal concentrates from the mines are shipped overseas for smelting.[33]

Doe Run also owned a primary lead smelting facility in southeastern Missouri in the unincorpated region of Glover.[38] The company acquired the facility in 1998 from ASARCO, but it was closed in 2003. [39][40][41][42]

In 2010, after issuance of new stricter EPA lead standards, Doe Run agreed to close the Herculaneum smelter and pay $65 million to correct past violations of the federal Clean Air and Clean Water acts.[16][59][60] The same year, the company announced plans to replace the Herculaneum smelter with an electrowinning plant, which would replace smelting with a contained wet chemical process, reducing emissions by nearly 99 percent.[61] The plans were a result of research the company had been conducting for decades to find a new way to produce lead.[62] Doe Run invested $30 million in developing new technology until the plan was put on hold in 2012.[63][64]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doe_Run_Company

So, IF the layered sample is a bit of waste from lead ore smelting, it's going to be somewhat rare bit of material from a niche process in a specialized field. But not alien.

Science podcaster and Chemical Engineer, Chris Cogswell echoed the B-K process as a possibility:

"I'd say that the chances of it being important scientifically are extremely slim. On top of that, it may not be much more than a piece of slag from an industrial process, for instance it has been suggested this may be from the Betterton-Kroll process," Dr. Chris Cogswell, who holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering and hosts the Mad Scientist Podcast, told Motherboard.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg...ic-metals-that-might-actually-just-be-bismuth

TTSA and Art's Parts

Nevertheless, Tom DeLong got in on the "meta-material from UFOs" bandwagon in 2019. As mentioned above, there is a short thread on this already. I'll repost how @igoddard started that thread with a bit of bolding by me:

TO THE STARS ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCE MAKES GROUNDBREAKING METAMATERIALS ACQUISITION

July 25, 2019

San Diego, CA (July 25, 2019) - To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) has acquired multiple pieces of metamaterials and an archive of initial analysis and research for their controversial ADAM Research Project. ADAM, an acronym for Acquisition and Data Analysis of Materials, is an academic research program focused on the exploitation of exotic materials for technological innovation.

The ownership of these assets, which were previously retained and studied by investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe and are reported to have come from an advanced aerospace vehicle of unknown origin, allows TTSA to conduct rigorous scientific evaluations to determine its function and possible applications.

"The structure and composition of these materials are not from any known existing military or commercial application," says Steve Justice, current COO of To The Stars Academy and former head of Advanced Systems at Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works." "They've been collected from sources with varying levels of chain-of-custody documentation, so we are focusing on verifiable facts and working to develop independent scientific proof of the materials' properties and attributes. In some cases, the manufacturing technology required to fabricate the material is only now becoming available, but the material has been in documented possession since the mid-1990's. We currently have multiple material samples being analyzed by contracted laboratories and have plans to extend the scope of this study." TTSA will also seek to engage the potential partners who have expressed interest in helping accelerate ADAM research and development.

"If the claims associated with these assets can be validated and substantiated, then we can initiate work to transition them from being a technology to commercial and military capabilities," adds Justice. "As noted in our October 2017 TTSA kickoff webcast, technologies that would allow us to engineer the spacetime metric would bring capabilities that would fundamentally alter civilization, with revolutionary changes to transportation, communication, and computation."

A Public Benefit Corporation, To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science is a consortium of scientists, aerospace engineers, and creatives working collectively to empower gifted researchers the freedom to explore exotic science and technologies with the support to rapidly transition innovative ideas into world-changing products and services.

https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/b...akes-groundbreaking-metamaterials-acquisition and http://archive.is/VxZtZ

Clearly if these meta-materials were owned by and researched by Linda Moulton Howe, then they are obviously Art's Parts. Note the comment about the "varying levels of chain-of-custody documentation". Is he referring to the letters from "A Friend"?

Also from that thread, an archived tweet from DeLong about the layered sample being a possible propulsion system:

An idea that seems to have originated with Travis Taylor, and something DeLong reiterated on Joe Rogan:

These are undoubtedly the same materials mentioned by DeLonge on his Joe Rogan interview where he stated, "if you hit it with enough terahertz, it'll float."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg...ic-metals-that-might-actually-just-be-bismuth

Clearly there was nothing new here, TTSA just had Art's Parts. The only interesting thing not covered in the original thread is who sold the parts to TTSA. Turns out it was DeLong himself:

On a blog post earlier this week, author and prolific UFO researcher Keith Basterfield posted links to the most recent SEC filings for To the Stars . Dated September 29th, the financial documents include an asset purchase agreement related to the sale of "metal pieces." To the Stars Academy is listed as the "Buyer" and company CEO Thomas DeLonge is listed as the "Seller." The price is $35,000. The filings say that a physicist employed by To the Stars named Hal Puthoff is analyzing the metals.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg...ic-metals-that-might-actually-just-be-bismuth

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420419046318/tv530141_ex6-22.htm

So, DeLong somehow got Art's Parts from Howe then sold them for $35k to his own company TTSA. The company he was encouraging people to invest in, and the company that people like Chris Mellon did invest in. Sound a bit like Adam Newman, the founder and CEO of WeWork, copyrighting the word "WE" and then selling the rights back to WeWork.

Nothing ever seems to have come from TTSA's ownership of Art's Parts.

Nolen and Vallee's Parts

Gary Nolen is an Immunologist at Stanford University. He got involved with noted UFO researcher Jacques Vallee and many of the Skinwalker Ranch crowd. At first, he did biological studies, but then got out of his field and started doing materials analysis. Here he is being interviewed (Thanks to @Ann K for finding this article):

You've also analyzed inanimate materials like alleged UAP fragments...
You've probably heard of Jacques Vallée, Kit Green, Eric Davis and Colm Kelleher. All roads lead to them when it comes to UAP. I basically became friends with that whole group; they call it The Invisible College. When they found out some of the instruments that I had developed, using mass spectrometry, they asked if I could analyze UAP material, and tell them something about it. That led to the development of a roadmap of how to analyze these things.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7n...nalyzing-anomalous-materials-from-ufo-crashes

He describes what sounds like bits of junk:

Some of the objects are nondescript, and just lumps of metal. Mostly, there's nothing unusual about them except that everywhere you look in the metal, the composition is different, which is odd. It's what we call inhomogeneous. That's a fancy way of saying 'incompletely mixed.' The common thing about all the materials that I've looked at so far, and there's about a dozen, is that almost none of them are uniform. They're all these hodgepodge mixtures. Each individual case will be composed of a similar set of elements, but they will be inhomogeneous.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7n...nalyzing-anomalous-materials-from-ufo-crashes

He then says he tested some material from the 1957 Ubatuba UFO incident Brazil (bold by me):

One of the materials from the

so called Ubatuba event [a UAP event in Brazil], has extraordinarily altered isotope ratios of magnesium. It was interesting because another piece from the same event was analyzed in the same instrument at the same time. This is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument called a nanoSIMS - Secondary Ion Mass Spec. It had perfectly correct isotope ratios for what you would expect for magnesium found anywhere on Earth. Meanwhile, the other one was just way off. Like 30 percent off the ratios. The problem is there's no good reason humans have for altering the isotope ratios of a simple metal like magnesium. There's no different properties of the different isotopes, that anybody, at least in any of the literature that is public of the hundreds of thousands of papers published, that says this is why you would do that. Now you can do it. It's a little expensive to do, but you'd have no reason for doing it.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7n...nalyzing-anomalous-materials-from-ufo-crashes

He concludes these materials have very strange isotopes of Mg. That may be, but they also may have nothing to do with Ubatuba or a UFO there (bold by me):

The very first problem is that 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 (seen here), 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. The metal appears in the columninst's hands and from there goes to Fontes, then to Jim and Coral Lorenzen (seen below)at APRO and then to various others. The chain of evidence is severed before we reach the beach in Brazil and that is a real problem.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/05/ubatuba-ufo-sample.html

So, we have a piece of a UFO that was anonymously sent to a journalist with a letter describing how it was found. This sounds very familiar. This is just the problem in Brazil before the samples made there way to the US:

Third, the samples have been handled in a fairly cavalier fashion. Once they arrived in the United States, no one had kept track of them and it could be argued that the chain of custody was broken here as well. The Air Force destroyed a small sample given them for testing without obtaining any results. The Lorenzens loaned various samples and pieces of samples to any number of people and some of those samples have been lost. In the end, it might be nearly impossible to say that the samples as they exist today are in any way related to those that were first sent to APRO. Dr. Fontes died decades ago, as did the Lorenzens. That is another stumbling block.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/05/ubatuba-ufo-sample.html

There is no telling what Nolen was testing. It seems that Peter A. Sturrock, also of Stanford, and Pierre Kaufmann had studied the supposed Ubatuba case back in 2004. From the introduction to their study we have more confirmation of the above claim that the materials lack any known providence and provenance beyond being mailed to journalist:

Sturrock and Kaufmann even provide a text of the letter that accompanied the sample(s):

One has to wonder if "A Friend" was familiar with this case and used it for inspiration when he sent Art his parts some 40 years later. As for the Ubatuba UFO story as told through the letter, there appeared to be NO confirmation at all:

Some people went back in 1982 and asked around and still couln't find anyone that could confirm the UFO story. One person said there was a plane crash in the same year, but that was it. However, others told of a story from ~1933 and described what sounded like a meteor falling:

Various people continued to research this case up into the '90s, so 30-40 later or a good 60 years later if it was from the early '30s. As one would expect, later stories became 2nd and 3rd hand and seemed to confabulate events in 1933 and 1957, though they all seem to sound more like a meteorite than a UFO. Also included in many of these stories is the notion of a fisherman collecting the material.

The article ends with these 2 items. A list of possibilities concerning the material coming from somewhere other than Ubatuba:

And the witness they did talk too didn't remember any UFO cases, just faked ones:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237309319_On_Events_Possibly_Related_to_the_''Brazil_Magnesium

This is a roundabout way to say, whatever piece of Mg Gary Nolen was testing, the idea that it was from a UFO is almost completely false, regardless of what isotopes are claimed to have been found. At best, though very unlikely, is it might have been a bit of a meteorite.

Apparently, Nolen is going to build a device that can analyze this stuff better. I'll let other weigh in the device he is describing:

Have you ever used a super quantum interference device?
We will likely be using SQUIDs in a new device that can determine the atomic structure of anything, at a sub-angstrom resolution. There's no device in the world that can do that today, especially of an amorphous object. We can do crystals, we can do little bits of biology with what's called cryo-EM. But this device supersedes all of them. So I'm talking with the government about building that.

Also of note, of his samples only 2 appear anomalist and even then, it's just in the isotope ratios:

How many objects have you checked out that are not playing by our rules?
So of the 10 or 12 that I've looked at, two seem to be not playing by our rules. That doesn't mean that they're levitating, on my desk or anything, it just means that they have altered isotope ratios.

I'll also let others weigh in on how rare isotopes of certain elements are and if there is any meaning to any of the talk of isotopes.

Jacque Vallee's meta-material is from the Trinty Saucer crash in New Mexico in 1945, described in his latest self-published book Trintiy: The Best-Kept Secret, written with Paola Harris of MUFON.

In the book, Jose Pedilla, who claimed to remove the meta-material from a crashed alien space craft when he 7-8 years old. Skeptical UFO researsher Douglass Johnson notes a few things about this claim:

If Jose Padilla's story had been that he found the artifact on the ground near the crashed spaceship, believers in the tale could simply say, "Well, obviously Jose jumped to the wrong conclusion—it was just an old piece of junk that happened to be sitting near where the alien spaceship crashed." But Padilla swears that the artifact was securely pinned to a panel of the interior wall of the alien craft—so well secured that Padilla needed a crowbar and his full strength to pry it off.

Faced with objective physical findings incompatible with an unverified tale of purported events 75 years earlier, one might think that an analyst with a modicum of critical discernment would conclude, "Well, it looks like that old rascal Jose Padilla has been stringing us along." But regrettably, that has not been Jacques Vallee's conclusion, as is demonstrated by these passages from the Second Edition of Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret.

https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/crash-story-file-the-alien-artifact-with-metric-dimensions/


Here is Jose with the meta-material:

I suppose it's hard to reverse engineer it, if Jose is still hanging on to it. Even Vallee had his doubts as Johnson uses quotes from the book to point out, but under the influance of Harris, Vallee seems to engage ins some cognitive dissonance:

I had become convinced it was likely a common industrial object, but Paola disagreed, and indeed some mystery remained. Actually, it had only become more puzzling: How did that piece of rough aluminum alloy end up pinned to the interior wall of the extraordinary vehicle the military had been so eager to remove and hide away in an undisclosed laboratory, where it presumably rests today?" (Trinity, page 125)

That convoluted instrument may appear standard but it is not "unremarkable." We have yet to ask what an ordinary, human fragment of some low-tech aluminum gadget was doing aboard a fantastic craft dropping from the sky in the middle of a storm, shattering the Marconi Tower of the White Sands Missile Range as its crew of diminutive insectoids skidded weirdly through the cabin. (Trinity, page 140)

What kind of interplanetary spacecraft would contain a device made of a common, human industrial alloy, without brand identification, manufactured to precise metric dimensions (30 cm long by 9 centimeters high) and metric diameters for all the holes? (Trinity, page 306)

Johnson also has a transcrip from Vallee talking to George Knapp aobut it. The gist seems to be that, yes it looks like a common earthly bracket of some sort and Vallee even says he bought a very similar one, BUT this one used metric sized holes, so it couldn't have been US made and not something the army would have, yet they wanted it back:

Note that, in addition to Mexico using the metric system, maybe the aliens did also.

Basically, Vallee has invested himself in a rambling story told 75 years after the fact by unreliable witness. But if he admits fully that what Pedilla has is just a bracket from some farm equipment, then that means Pedilla didn't get it from inside a crashed craft, and that story is false. If that's the case, the story of the army wanting it back may be false as is the story of the craft crashing at all, so it has to be something unusual to preserve the weak story its linked to. Johnson does a complete take down of Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret here: https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/. This isn't the thread for it.

So, it would seem all the talking of meta-materials and the reverse engineering of said materials refers almost exclusively to earthly materials that do nothing very strange but are all linked to UFOs through unsubstantiated here-say, anonymous witness and wishful thinking. None of the meta-materials have any useful history or provenance connecting them to their supposed origins. In addition, aside from a "bracket", most of the materials are bits of junk that are shared around the UFOlogy commuity as unique off-world wonders and some of their unique properties such as possible levitation stems from Travis Talylor. So, Skinwalker Ranch strikes again.

 

[John J.]

Excellent and interesting post, NorCal Dave. I regret that I have but one "Winner" icon-thingy to bestow.

Note that, in addition to Mexico using the metric system, maybe the aliens did also.

Odd that, as a European import to North America himself, Jacques Vallee doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the aluminium widget might have been imported. Or manufactured in the US for export.
Either possibility is- in my jaded view- slightly more probable than a seven year old prizing it out of an alien lander.

 

[Mendel]

Odd that, as a European import to North America himself, Jacques Vallee doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the aluminium widget might have been imported. Or manufactured in the US for export.

Pretty sure the army "imported" some German hardware for analysis in WW2 and shortly thereafter, which would've been metric. Or possibly Soviet hardware. Lots of stuff went from Europe to the US in 1945.

 

[DavidB66]

By an odd coincidence, Avi Loeb has just reported on an 'anomalous' finding from his current expedition to the site of the 'first recognised interstellar meteor', which crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The finding is of a small piece of wire containing manganese and platinum in 'anomalous' proportions. This report is naturally causing much excitement in the UFO-sphere. Loeb's own account is in a blog post here:

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/an-anom...-pacific-ocean-site-of-the-first-3ccb7076dfc0

Other readers are doubtless better qualified to assess this, but I will just offer a few comments.

1. First, the piece of wire is very small: only 8 mm long, and very thin.

2. The wire was recovered by trawling with a magnetic device. It is unclear how the wire came to be retained on the magnet, since it is itself described as non-magnetic. Loeb discusses this in his blog. I note that the wire appears to contain nickel, which is magnetic, so I don't know if this description is accurate. I also note that in the photo of the wire in situ on the magnet, it looks as if the end of the wire may be caught under the rim of a screw. It is not clear from the blog post who first noticed the wire. According to Loeb, it was necessary to brush away 'plenty of volcanic dust'. [Btw deep ocean sediments may also contain meteoritic dust as a significant component.] It is not clear to me how the wire remained as it appears in the in situ photo, just sitting on top of the magnet, after this brushing process, unless it was actually trapped under the screw, which would cast some doubt on its interstellar origin!

3. Loeb states that, according to the team's analysis, the wire has two 'composition peaks' at manganese and platinum. This is odd, as the table of actual figures for the composition of the object show platinum as a very small component, less than 1 per cent, with aluminum, nickel, tin (Sn) and cerium (Ce) all more than ten times as important. Maybe platinum is sexier? As for manganese, it is over 400 times as abundant as platinum in the object. If these figures are correct, Loeb's headline description of the object as 'made of manganese and platinum' is misleading. It would be better to describe it as made of manganese with traces of other metals, of which platinum is the least important.

4. Loeb notes that alloys of manganese and platinum are commercially available and notably used for non-corroding electrodes, but that these have quite different proportions of platinum.

Others may be able to comment on the likelihood that traces of platinum would be found in man-made objects.

 

[Itsme]

The analysis report of the Ubatuba fragment can be downloaded here: https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/36/jse_36_1_Powell.pdf

 

[NorCal Dave]

View attachment 59873

Pretty sure the army "imported" some German hardware for analysis in WW2 and shortly thereafter, which would've been metric. Or possibly Soviet hardware. Lots of stuff went from Europe to the US in 1945.

I suppose that could be and might make sense IF the part was recovered on the White Sands testing grounds. But even then, it would have just been a piece of "foreign", not US made, material that was picked up. But as the whole crash story seems to be made up, it's unclear where it actually came from. From Johnson's site, some more pictures:

Vallee was aware of the similarities to these parts:

Likewise, in Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret (Second Edition), pages 139-140, Vallee wrote:

The shape and possible function are generally reminiscent of devices activating mobile vanes, such as the mechanism of water wells, and the mast section of windmills, for example in the Aermotor Company's list of standard parts widely used in industry. Yet they don't correspond to any of the specific products we've found so far.

https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/crash-story-file-the-alien-artifact-with-metric-dimensions/

But because it was not exactly the same, it might still be alien. Lots of tests were performed on bits of it over the years, I'll just include this from 2015. It was commissioned by Jan Harzan, then head of MUFON as the organization and Harris were pushing the Trinty Crash story hard. Here is the first page showing who did it and for whom:

They concluded, like most of the other tests had, that it was plain old aluminum. BUT, the aliens could have used time travel to construct their crafts here on Earth using terrestrial materials, like aluminum. Seriously:

Budinger-analysis-2015.pdf

So, when future aliens construct their craft, not only do they use terrestrial materials, but they also seem to use off the shelf windmill and weathervane parts. Keeps the cost down I guess.

 

[JMartJr]

Others may be able to comment on the likelihood that traces of platinum would be found in man-made objects.

I'd also be interested in whether anybody knows whether a thin piece of mtal 8 mm long might be produced by natural processes, or knows that it could not.

 

[jplaza]

So, why are these called "meta materials"?

"Metamaterials" are tipically characterized by specific optical / electromagnetic properties, like negative index of refraction, and both negative dielectric constant and magnetic permitivity at least in a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

But I see the discussion is mainly about isotopic ratios, and I didn't notice any mention to the EM properties.

Is the term being "abducted" to be used to mean something different?

 

[NorCal Dave]

The analysis report of the Ubatuba fragment can be downloaded here: https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/36/jse_36_1_Powell.pdf

Yeah, it's from the Journal of Scientific Exploration, which is not exactly peer reviewed. Here is the list of people involved from their header page:

Robert M. Powell exploreSCU@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7449-2499 Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, Fort Myers, Florida

Michael D. Swords Center for UFO Studies Chicago, Illinois

Mark Rodeghier https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7258-0073 Center for UFO Studies Chicago, Illinois

Phyllis Budinger Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, Fort Myers, Florida SUBMITTED January 22, 2022 ACCEPTED February 22, 2022 PUBLISHED May 22, 2022 https://doi.org/10.31275/20222413

It's a bunch of UFO enthusiasts. Note the last name, Phyllis Budinger, and the report on the Trinty Crash "artifact" in post #7 that was done by P. Budinger. As if often the case in UFOlogy, it's the same people over and over again.

From the article's opening paragraph (bold by me):

HIGHLIGHTS
Analysis of the trace elements in a metallic sample from a 1957 'UFO' were inconclusive about its non-terrestrial origin. But tests indicated that the debris was mostly composed of extremely pure magnesium with an odd strontium impurity. This formula was not used in the manufacture of magnesium at the time.

So, right away it's very similar to all the other meta-material claims, "we can't say it IS alien, but it's weird so..."

The thing goes on for 10 pages of irrelevant analysis, which I'm not going to read because the first few introductory paragraphs sum everything up (bold by me):

INTRODUCTION
The vast majority of UFO sightings involve only witness testimony, without physical evidence that can be examined in a laboratory. However, in a very small fraction of cases, there has been material available for later analysis. These include falls of angel hair (although these often evaporate rapidly), slag-like material, powdery deposits, or physical samples that appear manufactured. The Ubatuba, Brazil, samples, the subject of this paper, fall into this latter category. Other notable examples of physical traces include those in Campinas, Brazil (1954), Vaddo, Sweden (1954), Redding, CA (1969), Delphos, Kansas (1971), and Carlisle, NY (1975).

The ideal UFO artifact useful for isotope testing should 1) be something physical in a solid state, 2) have been witnessed or otherwise determined to be clearly involved with a UFO, and 3) have acceptable provenance and adequate data collection. These criteria are not easy to meet, first because the events themselves are rare (far less than 0.1% of UFO reports), and also because of the lack of investigative resources to meet points 2 and 3. Although the Ubatuba samples are not conclusively tied to a UFO event, the rarity of such a sample, the interesting circumstances of how it became available, and the long history of prior testing motivated this new analysis

These people are clearly engaging in some serious cognitive dissonance. After laying out the criteria for a good UFO sample, they addmit this doesn't really meet the standard. Oh well, lets do it anyway. They spent a lot of time studying a UFO fragment knowing it has no provenance linking it to an actual UFO.

IF, a very big IF, they even have a piece that was originally sent to the journalist in 1957, the only thing linking it to a UFO crash is an event described in an anonymous letter. An event for which no UFO investigator from '57 through to the '90s could find any evidence for.

The report is meaningless. The main takeaway is some maybe strange isotope ratios, as those are the big buzzwords in UFO meta-material analysis lately. Again, from their own opening statement (bold by me):

This formula was not used in the manufacture of magnesium at the time.

So, the likely conclusion should be, it's not from that time, as they have no idea where the sample came from. No one does.

From their last paragraph, we can at least look forward to some Bigfoot and ghost studies:

Thinking beyond the UFO box, if any researcher obtains unusual seeming material from incidents like cryptozoological encounters, strange falls from the sky, or paranormal objects such as apports, this approach can be employed. We need more reliable, physical data on all types of paranormal events, and purported physical samples allow the most in-depth studies. However, this is limited by the serious expense of these tests. They cannot be casually applied.

 

[Harabeck]

By an odd coincidence, Avi Loeb has just reported on an 'anomalous' finding from his current expedition to the site of the 'first recognised interstellar meteor', which crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The finding is of a small piece of wire containing manganese and platinum in 'anomalous' proportions. This report is naturally causing much excitement in the UFO-sphere. Loeb's own account is in a blog post here:

He discusses it in an appearance on the Event Horizon YT channel as well. I'm not sure I caught any interesting info about the sample not covered by Loeb's own article, but I did find it interesting that the Galileo project has the funding for this kind of expedition, and even has an on-board camera crew filming a documentary.

 

[Mick West]

The voice on the audio tape sounds a lot like the Travis Taylor that appears on TV nowadays, he has the same name and is in Huntsville. If Howe is to be believed, Taylor was looking to get into UFO/fringe stuff back in the '90s, going so far as volunteering and offering his services to UFO/fringe media personalities.

The involvement of Taylor in early testing of the parts might relate to the current Grusch sage. They would have crossed paths at the UAPTF, and Taylor may well have been involved in convincing Grusch of the unusual nature of those bits of metal. When asked what the evidence was that the "craft" were alien, the very first thing Grusch went to was isotope ratios, and then to atomic arrangements (i.e. metamaterials)

GRUSCH: based on the very specific properties that I was briefed on, you know, isotopic ratios that would have to be engineered for it to be at those levels, but also just extremely strange, heavy, atomic metal, you know, high up in the periodic table, of arrangements that we don't understand, you know, what the emergent properties are, but there's just a very strange mix of elements.

The mention of unknown "emergent properties" sounds very like the speculation regarding the layered fragment, and it "lifting" or being a "terahertz waveguide"

 

[DavidB66]

I'd also be interested in whether anybody knows whether a thin piece of mtal 8 mm long might be produced by natural processes, or knows that it could not.

Nodules and crusts of manganese and other metals, sometimes including platinum, do form naturally on the sea bed. I haven't come across any references to wires or 'thin pieces' of metal. One might speculate that metals could be deposited around existing structures, like thin filaments of algae or bacteria. But until we know how the 'wire' came to be stuck to the magnet, my hunch would be that it had a human origin, either accidental or deliberate.

 

[deirdre]

@NorCal Dave Holy moly that is one L-O-N-G op you might want to mention (earlier on in op), for readers that cant get through all that, the Art's parts was basically solved https://www.metabunk.org/threads/id...sheets-heat-exchanger-fins.11012/#post-235474

 

[NorCal Dave]

@NorCal Dave Holy moly that is one L-O-N-G op you might want to mention (earlier on in op), for readers that cant get through all that, the Art's parts was basically solved https://www.metabunk.org/threads/id...sheets-heat-exchanger-fins.11012/#post-235474

Yes thanks, I did include a link to the thread about the TTSA meta-materials which I believe links to that one, but I'll try to add it up top. Along with a definition of "meta-material" in this context.

While what some of Art's Parts have been identified, I was unaware of their long and convoluted history even including a young Travis Taylor. I also wanted to share, in full, here is where these things came from, so when someone like DeLong can convince the US military to study them it's clear that their only connection to an alien or non-human origin is a few anonymous letters that make a number of wild claims. A bit of a "Do you really want to insist this is alien based on these letter?". Which seems to apply to the rest of the meta-materials presented as well.

 

[John J.]

Pretty sure the army "imported" some German hardware for analysis in WW2 and shortly thereafter, which would've been metric. Or possibly Soviet hardware. Lots of stuff went from Europe to the US in 1945.

Absolutely right, of course.
To be honest, I was thinking more of commercial items, industrial components etc. from (or for) Transatlantic trade.

I'm sure Jose Padilla is a fine, upstanding gentleman, but it has occurred to me that perhaps he has mis-remembered, and that his aluminium thing might not have been found in 1945, and probably not in a "spacecraft".

However, I think this is all arguably moot- NorCal Dave's subsequent post (link below) is surely convincing evidence that Jose Padillo/ Jacques Vallee's object has a fairly mundane, terrestrial origin.

Like George Adamski's "Venusian Scout Ship", I don't think the onus should be on people sceptical of the UFO-origin hypothesis to find a manufactured object exactly identical to the proposed "alien" object (though that would be the ideal);
Padilla's "mystery" item is no mystery at all. It is a component similar to, and presumably performing an analogous function to, the identified windmill component.

From Johnson's site, some more pictures:

A montage of NorCal Dave's pics; (L-R) Padilla with his artefact, supposedly from a UFO; the artefact next to a mechanical windmill component; detail of "Aeromotor" windmill diagram.

If Padilla's item were proven to be a terrestrial object, Jacques Vallee has a possible "explanation":

The Marconi tower, which appears to have dominated the northern section of the White Sands Missile Range, reportedly generated its own power with a small windmill, so perhaps the specially-designed aluminum bracket came from there.

From Jacques Vallee's Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, quoted on "Mirador" website, Douglas Dean Johnson, link here.
(The story is, the crashing UFO struck a tower in the White Sands range).

So if the artefact is human-made, it's still evidence of ETI because someone claims it was found in a crashed UFO.
This way madness lies; my plastic comb is proof of a traditional Inuit settlement in southern England- I found it in an igloo.

 

[Ann K]

By an odd coincidence, Avi Loeb has just reported on an 'anomalous' finding from his current expedition to the site of the 'first recognised interstellar meteor', which crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The finding is of a small piece of wire containing manganese and platinum in 'anomalous' proportions.

We generally use the term "Wire" to refer to a metal deliberately formed into a long thread-like shape. Does he use the term to mean that, or does he use it to mean any longer-than-wide shape that might come from dendritic growth, deposition on a natural substrate, spatter from a molten metal etc?

 

[JMartJr]

I suspect it is "it looks like a wire, I'll call it a wire, and everybody knows wires are manufactured items, SO..." Sounds like from your post Ann K that there may indeed be natural processes that could create something that I would point at and say "That's a bit of wire, that is."

 

[John J.]

By an odd coincidence, Avi Loeb has just reported on an 'anomalous' finding from his current expedition to the site of the 'first recognised interstellar meteor', which crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The finding is of a small piece of wire containing manganese and platinum in 'anomalous' proportions

-Avi Loeb's blog, link kindly provided by DavidB66:
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/crash-story-file-the-alien-artifact-with-metric-dimensions/

What fresh hell is this?!

It's a piece of wire apparently found in the ocean (Loeb had a crewmember sweep the deck to see if similar bits were found-
none were, but why do this unless there's a chance of "contamination?" Was the clothing, hair of crew checked?)

Loeb' relevant blog entry is titled

An Anomalous Wire Made of Manganese and Platinum in the Pacific Ocean Site of the First Interstellar Meteor

Why is it "anomalous"?

...we noticed a strange curled wire

(Loeb's blog)
Why is it strange? It's a piece of wire in the sea.

It's a piece of wire. Finding it in the (possible) site of a meteorite- even an extra-solar meteorite- doesn't make it special.
Exoticness is not contagious. Nor is scientific relevance.

Loeb has called this "specimen" IS1-2. I don't know if it's coincidence, or more likely connected with Loeb's expedition aims (searching for a meteorite of interstellar origin) but I think the name, with the implication of "Interstellar", is unfortunate.

Today, Ryan Weed and Jeff Wynn analysed in detail this unexpected wire and concluded that its composition is anomalous compared to human-made alloys.

Very difficult not to swear here.
Loeb provides no evidence whatsoever to support this claim- other than the constituent metal ratios are different than those used in some laboratory electrodes.

The constituent metal ratios might be different to that of the wire that my old Dad used to use to tie his bean plants to their poles, but I don't think that makes it anomalous either.

Magnesium/ platinum alloys have many uses, some technically interesting

These materials are pursued for applications in various industries such as magneto-optics [4], high-density magnetic data recording media [5], magnetic random access memory (MRAM) [6], oxygen reduction catalyst [7], data storage [8] and biomedicine [9].

-from "First-principles calculations to investigate magnetic, electronic, mechanical and dynamical properties of the bimetallic M-Pt (M: Mn Co and Ni) alloys", N.L. Lethole, P. Mukumba, G. Makaka, Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Vol 565, 2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304885322011830

-but this doesn't mean that Loeb's fragment has a technically interesting origin.

Like pretty much every manufacturing process, it's a reasonable bet that the odd bad batch of MgPt alloy (or substandard batch of MgPt products) is made. And perhaps dumped.

A small-scale manufacturer might produce a novel composition alloy for a specific purpose not considered by Loeb (and there isn't much evidence on his blog of Loeb considering prosaic origins).

 

[NorCal Dave]

So, why are these called "meta materials"?

"Metamaterials" are tipically characterized by specific optical / electromagnetic properties, like negative index of refraction, and both negative dielectric constant and magnetic permitivity at least in a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

But I see the discussion is mainly about isotopic ratios, and I didn't notice any mention to the EM properties.

Is the term being "abducted" to be used to mean something different?

Don't get all logical on us . Yes, technically metamaterials are defined as:

A metamaterial (from the Greek word μετά meta, meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word materia, meaning "matter" or "material") is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials.[3] They are made from assemblies of multiple elements fashioned from composite materials such as metals and plastics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial

I'm using the word in its common UFOlogical context, which doesn't have a real solid meaning. It's something like "a material that is purported to be from a UFO, or maybe interdimensional, that exhibits unique and exotic structures, properties and, in the last few years, strange or unusual isotopic ratios". I'll see about adding this to the OP for clarity.

 

[Mendel]

any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials

I think that's why they're doing these high-voltage experiments: getting the item to jump or "levitate" provides a reason to label it as meta.
Notwithstanding the fact that there's no way to place a whole spaceship inside a high-voltage field.

 

[Itsme]

The involvement of Taylor in early testing of the parts might relate to the current Grusch sage. They would have crossed paths at the UAPTF, and Taylor may well have been involved in convincing Grusch of the unusual nature of those bits of metal. When asked what the evidence was that the "craft" were alien, the very first thing Grusch went to was isotope ratios, and then to atomic arrangements (i.e. metamaterials)

GRUSCH: based on the very specific properties that I was briefed on, you know, isotopic ratios that would have to be engineered for it to be at those levels, but also just extremely strange, heavy, atomic metal, you know, high up in the periodic table, of arrangements that we don't understand, you know, what the emergent properties are, but there's just a very strange mix of elements.

The mention of unknown "emergent properties" sounds very like the speculation regarding the layered fragment, and it "lifting" or being a "terahertz waveguide"

I doubt it, since none of the examples in the OP are of metals that are 'extremely heavy, high up in the periodic table'.
His remark on elements 'high up in the periodic table' made me think of 'element 115' mentioned by Lazar (though I never studied Lazar very thoroughly).

 

[jplaza]

Don't get all logical on us . Yes, technically metamaterials are defined as:

A metamaterial (from the Greek word μετά meta, meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word materia, meaning "matter" or "material") is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials.[3] They are made from assemblies of multiple elements fashioned from composite materials such as metals and plastics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial

I'm using the word in its common UFOlogical context, which doesn't have a real solid meaning. It's something like "a material that is purported to be from a UFO, or maybe interdimensional, that exhibits unique and exotic structures, properties and, in the last few years, strange or unusual isotopic ratios". I'll see about adding this to the OP for clarity.

That's a very generic definition for metamaterial, that you can apply virtually to any engineered material. You are missing the second part, which is more specific:
(also from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial)

Their precise shape, geometry, size, orientation and arrangement gives them their smart properties capable of manipulating electromagnetic waves: by blocking, absorbing, enhancing, or bending waves, to achieve benefits that go beyond what is possible with conventional materials

Appropriately designed metamaterials can affect waves of electromagnetic radiation or sound in a manner not observed in bulk materials

And even more specifically, metamaterial properties arise from "averaging" the properties of its constituents

An electromagnetic metamaterial affects electromagnetic waves that impinge on or interact with its structural features, which are smaller than the wavelength. To behave as a homogeneous material accurately described by an effective refractive index, its features must be much smaller than the wavelength.

(my emphasis)

I first heard about metamaterials around 2005, and they were referred to electromagnetic waves manipulation. Later, analogous materials (or maybe only ideas) appeared for transmission of acoustic waves, or seismic waves (don't know if any such materials have ever been produced).

I never heard "metamaterial" referred to changing the isotopic abundances of materials, which by the way, don't create any exotic property of the engineered material. The only differences would be found related to nuclear interactions, but not related to chemical, electromagnetic, or gravitational properties.

Also, the discussion is about how a different isotopic abundances would indicate an extra-terrestrial origin of whatever material. But that means that outside Earth, those could be their natural abundances, not necessarily engineered.

So for those two reasons, the definition of the term "metamaterial" (event a generic one) is in fact not applicable!!.

But I understand you are using the same term that others guys do to refer to their claims.

I just can't help feeling confused about the use of the term, and think that those guys do not know what they speak about, and just borrow scientific terminology to avoid saying "stuff fabricated by aliens".

Or maybe I just have some kind of obsession with terminology and its correct usage.

 

[Mendel]

That's a very generic definition for metamaterial, that you can apply virtually to any engineered material.

Well, the really generic meaning for "metamaterial" in fiction and ufology is, "material that can do magic". It could create a force field shield, it could levitate, stuff like that. Normal "engineered material", like stainless steel, epoxy glue, or high-performance ceramics, don't do unusual things, they just do common things better, and therefore don't excite the imagination as much. But material that jumps "by itself" without being alive, that's gotta be magic (with a science veneer, since we're modern humans). But the aliens are just modern-day fairies (abductions included, and so is the "other world"), and their artifacts are the modern-day magic items.

I mean, you might as well claim that the Holy Grail is secreted away in the Tower of London, and suggest that the brightest scientific minds of Britain have attempted to reverse-engineer its arcane powers to no avail, but that just sounds outdated and not 20th century at all. We're not communing with nature and spirits, we love technology and commune with the stars extraterrestrials. That's why our magic items are called "metamaterials", though their provenience is still steeped in mystic lore, their powers are indefinite, and they're worth a lot even though they don't do anything special.

Or, you know, track a spacecraft from outer space to Earth, then I'll readily accept that its material is extraterrestrial. But somehow that never happens.

 

[Rick Robson]

I doubt it, since none of the examples in the OP are of metals that are 'extremely heavy, high up in the periodic table'.
His remark on elements 'high up in the periodic table' made me think of 'element 115' mentioned by Lazar (though I never studied Lazar very thoroughly).

Right on , and seemingly people now loosely use the term "metamaterial" to refer to the intelligent materials being developed today.

BTW, all that debate raised again by that such David Grusch about reverse engineering non-human crafts being an old practice within intelligence agencies' contractor facilities brought to mind another old aspect to it that surprises me nobody talks about:
The "magical" material properties of the debris allegedly found in Roswell's 1947 crash site -- as such described by those who back then supposedly collected and/or came into contact with them -- are exactly the same achieved by Skylar Tibbits's breakthroughs on his researches and laboratorial experiments with intelligent materials, which now have been loosely called "metamaterials":

What Can Intelligent Materials Do? -- with Skylar Tibbits

And as recently as a couple months ago, Amir Alavi received $535K NSF CAREER Award to create "metamaterials" that take one more step forward -- they "think" for themselves:

Paving the way for truly intelligent materials

 

[ump]

Right on , and seemingly people now loosely use the term "metamaterial" to refer to the intelligent materials being developed today.

BTW, all that debate raised again by that such David Grusch about reverse engineering non-human crafts being an old practice within intelligence agencies' contractor facilities brought to mind another old aspect to it that surprises me nobody talks about:
The "magical" material properties of the debris allegedly found in Roswell's 1947 crash site -- as such described by those who back then supposedly collected and/or came into contact with them -- are exactly the same achieved by Skylar Tibbits's breakthroughs on his researches and laboratorial experiments with intelligent materials, which now have been loosely called "metamaterials":

What Can Intelligent Materials Do? -- with Skylar Tibbits

And as recently as a couple months ago, Amir Alavi received $535K NSF CAREER Award to create "metamaterials" that take one more step forward -- they "think" for themselves:

Paving the way for truly intelligent materials

Ive never seen an account like that for Roswell. Do you have a link?

And sceptically, there are so many versions of Roswell that at least one is vaguely going to match something sooner or later…

 

[NorCal Dave]

I just can't help feeling confused about the use of the term, and think that those guys do not know what they speak about, and just borrow scientific terminology to avoid saying "stuff fabricated by aliens"

Absolutely! I think @Sharon Hill even coined the word "Scientifical" or something like that, to refer to UFOlogist, ghost hunters, cryptid hunters and similar groups coopting science sounding terms, procedures and equipment to bolster their claims. Even if they don't really understand any of it.

 

[Rick Robson]

Ive never seen an account like that for Roswell. Do you have a link?

The most famous account was by that official who allegedly collected the debris, he told the material always returned to its original form no matter what he did to it with his hands. Don't have the time right now for a link, but guess it's fairly easy to find it on the web.

 

[ump]

The most famous account was by that official who allegedly collected the debris, he told the material always returned to its original form no matter what he did to it with his hands. Don't have the time right now for a link, but guess it's fairly easy to find it on the web.

Ah. So it was springy. I think that was already a thing several centuries ago…

Also, it has nothing to do with https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/986830

>"The self-powered mechanical metamaterials we've developed in previous projects gave us the flexibility to finely tune all aspects of the material. Now, we're imbuing those materials with a level of intelligence, and they will be able to power themselves without a battery, sense the environment, perform calculations and communicate those findings

Although it is amusing to think that the "memory metal" spectacle frames found at every optician might be reverse engineered from a wrecked ufo…

 

[Rick Robson]

Also, it has nothing to do with https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/986830

But please, don't put words in my mouth ok?
I just referred to that last breakthrough as an interesting highlight to the intelligent materials subject.

 

[Rick Robson]

Ah. So it was springy. I think that was already a thing several centuries ago…

Then that story of those allegedly "magical" properties as such described by that military official about the debris he supposedly found in Roswell was long definitely debunked and I didn't know, mind you...! Thank you for clarifying.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Ive never seen an account like that for Roswell. Do you have a link?

One of the accounts seems to be from Frankie Rowe a daughter of Roswell fireman, Dan Dwyer. It's discussed in a thread about Melvin Brown:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/roswell-ufo-witness-sgt-melvin-e-brown.12162

In post #77 a YouTube video is offered discussing Rowe, it's posted below.

My response then is probably still relevant:

What about the foil material that Frankie Rowe, daughter of fireman Dan Dwyer, claims she witnessed?

This is no different from the original post with Beverly. It is NOT proof of anything, it could be a starting point to look into the claim, as silly as it sounds.

Note that the entire segment only lasts from ~6:20-~6:52 and consists of a narrator simply saying that the fire department was involved and got some meta-material as if it was common knowledge. No citation, no interviews or statements from the fire chief or police at the time, no records showing their involvement. Nothing, it is simple stated as fact. Tagged on is 20-30 year old (I don't know when this "documentary" was made or when her part was recorded) recollection from this lady.

Furthermore, and this is not meant disrespectfully, but bringing her up here boarders on running a Gish Gallop (see Mendel's post #36). Plenty of people have pointed out the flaws in the originally posted video, so you move onto an other, I would say equally flawed, testimonial.

Kind of like saying "Well what about this? Oh. Well what about this? Oh. Well what about this?" If each "this" is little more than hearsay or an old story with little or no corroborating evidence, it's starting to look like a Gish Gallop.

Post #97 from the thread

Just another unsubstantiated claim from years later.


Source: https://youtu.be/eSoRHwKWRxM&t=385s

 

[Ann K]

You forgot the worst of the worst - software "engineers"…

I would have chosen "quantum" as the most overused and least understood term used by those who want to sound as if they know what they're talking about.

 

[Ann K]

The most famous account was by that official who allegedly collected the debris, he told the material always returned to its original form no matter what he did to it with his hands. Don't have the time right now for a link, but guess it's fairly easy to find it on the web.

I recall that description too, and immediately thought aha, aluminized Mylar before it was a well-known thing.

 

[ump]

I would have chosen "quantum" as the most overused and least understood term used by those who want to sound as if they know what they're talking about.

I think quantum is just a null word, like proactive. But engineer requires that you can describe and verify your constructions with mathematics. And believe me, this is not the case for software… It makes more sense to call someone who knits a stitching engineer than a programmer a software engineer.

 

[ump]

I think quantum is just a null word, like proactive. But engineer requires that you can describe and verify your constructions with mathematics. And believe me, this is not the case for software… It makes more sense to call someone who knits a stitching engineer than a programmer a software engineer.

And, yes, I am a programmer. I can design software, I can code it, but I can't mathematically verify a design or an implementation. Thus I am not, not, not an engineer!

 

[JMartJr]

Don't have the time right now for a link

Here you go:

Otherworldly Metal?

Major Marcel stated, over three decades later in 1979, that the metal was exceedingly thin. "It was possible to flex this stuff back and forth, even to wrinkle it, but you could not put a crease in it that would stay, nor could you dent it at all"—not even with a sledgehammer.2 "I would almost have to describe it as a metal with plastic properties" (Marcel 1979).


"Mac" Brazel, who actually found the wreckage, had a son Bill who echoed Major Marcel's description. According to Bill Brazel, over the years he would pick up little pieces of the strange metal in the vicinity of the original debris. He described this as:


. . . several bits of a metal-like substance, something on the order of tinfoil except that this stuff wouldn't tear and was actually a bit darker in color than tinfoil—more like lead foil, except very thin and extremely lightweight. The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal. It was almost more like a plastic of some sort, except that it was definitely metallic in nature. (Brazel 1979, 79)

Note that Major Marcel and Brazel's son Bill used similar phrasing to describe the foil-like material—Marcell referring to "a metal with plastic properties" while Bill Brazel said it was "Like a plastic of some sort, except that it was definitely metallic in nature." Unfortunately, pieces of the original material from the crash site were not kept either by Marcell or the Brazel families, both having turned in all the debris they found (Berlitz and Moore 1980, 71–72, 83–84). So, what was the metal?

S0urce: https://skepticalinquirer.org/newsletter/roswell-ufo-strange-metal-mystery/

Took a few seconds...

 

[NorCal Dave]

I doubt it, since none of the examples in the OP are of metals that are 'extremely heavy, high up in the periodic table'.
His remark on elements 'high up in the periodic table' made me think of 'element 115' mentioned by Lazar (though I never studied Lazar very thoroughly).

I think it's a combination of claims (bold by me):

GRUSCH: based on the very specific properties that I was briefed on, you know, isotopic ratios that would have to be engineered for it to be at those levels, but also just extremely strange, heavy, atomic metal, you know, high up in the periodic table, of arrangements that we don't understand, you know, what the emergent properties are, but there's just a very strange mix of elements.

Strange isotopic ratios, very heavy elements and/or emergent properties. The use of "heavy elements" is a standard trope in UFOlogy and science fiction because most of the metal on the periodic table past uranium and plutonium don't exist in nature, are man-made and very rare and unstable. In other words, they're "mysterious". There is nothing weird about a crashed alien craft having lots of copper in it, so do most modern American homes.

But element 115, that's sexy! Especially when a crank like Bob Lazar was talking about it back in the late '80s when it didn't exist:

Lazar has claimed that the propulsion of the studied vehicle ran on an antimatter reactor[36] and was fueled by the chemical element with atomic number 115 (E115), which at the time was provisionally named ununpentium and had not yet been artificially created.[4][37] (It was first synthesized in 2003 and later named moscovium.)[38] He said that the propulsion system relied on a stable isotope of E115, which allegedly generates a gravity wave that allowed the vehicle to fly and to evade visual detection by bending light around it.[39]

It's one thing for DeLong, possible parroting what Taylor had hinted to Howe, that magnesium and bismuth make a levitation device. Material scientist know a lot about those 2 elements. If there were any truth to the claim, I'm pretty sure Musk, love him or hate him, would have been using it for Space X. Or maybe Boeing as Musk has put the smack down on them in the heavy launch vehicle world. Either way, it's testable.

Not so with and unknown element. As it's unknown, it might be able to do anything, so for Lazar it was, at the time unknown E115. If he were telling his story today, he might be up in the 120s.

For the record Lazar made a number of claims:

Lazar claims to have obtained master's degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in electronics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). However, both universities show no record of him.[3][8]

Lazar is unable to supply the names of any lecturers or fellow students from his alleged tenures at MIT and Caltech; one supposed Caltech professor, William Duxler, was in fact located at Pierce Junior College and had never taught at Caltech.[3][9]

Lazar alleges that his employment and education records have been erased;

Lazar claims to be a physicist, and to have worked in this capacity during his tenure at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.[3][10]

As such, the laboratory has no records on Lazar,

The Smithsonian, and various mainstream news outlets, have stated that his "physicist" designation is self-proclaimed.[c]

Lazar said that his job was to help with the reverse engineering of one of nine flying saucers, which he alleged were extraterrestrial in origin.

Lazar has claimed that during his joining the program, he read briefing documents describing the historical involvement of Earth for the past 10,000 years with extraterrestrial beings described as grey aliens from a planet orbiting the twin binary star system Zeta Reticuli.

And he's of course been part of George Knapp's cirlce since first sharing his claims with him in the '80s:

Lazar was featured in producer George Knapp and Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell's documentary Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers[53] and Joe Rogan's podcast.[50][54][55] Lazar had met and discussed his alleged works on UFOs with Navy pilot and commander David Fravor, who witnessed the USS Nimitz UFO incident in 2004.[56]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar

And just to tie it all together, DeLongs TTSA published Lazar's autobiography:

 

[Itsme]

I think it's a combination of claims (bold by me):

GRUSCH: based on the very specific properties that I was briefed on, you know, isotopic ratios that would have to be engineered for it to be at those levels, but also just extremely strange, heavy, atomic metal, you know, high up in the periodic table, of arrangements that we don't understand, you know, what the emergent properties are, but there's just a very strange mix of elements.

Strange isotopic ratios, very heavy elements and/or emergent properties.

But element 115, that's sexy! Especially when a crank like Bob Lazar was talking about it back in the late '80s when it didn't exist:

I read it as two claims:

isotopic ratios that would have to be engineered for it to be at those levels,

but also just extremely strange, heavy, atomic metal, you know, high up in the periodic table, of arrangements that we don't understand, you know, what the emergent properties are

Lazar could have picked up rumours about those heavy elements and used them in his story.

Grusch, of course, is of an entirely different caliber.

 

[FatPhil]

But element 115, that's sexy! Especially when a crank like Bob Lazar was talking about it back in the late '80s when it didn't exist:

Lazar has claimed that the propulsion of the studied vehicle ran on an antimatter reactor[36] and was fueled by the chemical element with atomic number 115 (E115), which at the time was provisionally named ununpentium and had not yet been artificially created.[4][37] (It was first synthesized in 2003 and later named moscovium.)[38] He said that the propulsion system relied on a stable isotope of E115, which allegedly generates a gravity wave that allowed the vehicle to fly and to evade visual detection by bending light around it.[39]

Pseudoscientific technobabble. Moscovium, even back in the 80s, would have been predicted to naturally and quickly (by human scales) decay by emitting alpha particles to Nihonium, which would be expected to do the same, as would its decay products. That's basically because it's near the top of the lobe of things that exists here - columns 171-175 in row 115 is north-west of the circled island here, and alpha decay moves you two left and two down:

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability )
At no point is any "antimatter" involved in any of that. Nor would Moscovium or alpha particles be of any particular (no pun intended) use to antimatter if they also had a store of antimatter. For example, if they want to annihilate helium nuclei with anti-helium nuclei, it would be much simpler to just carry helium. The whole idea's ill thought out.
Nor would any of the isotopes of Moscovium be stable.
Nor would any gravity waves be generated, as it is simple mass-energy that causes those, and a lump of radioactive fuel doesn't have much more mass-energy than a slightly larger lump of anything else - and those don't create gravity waves that would be even theoretically measurable, never mind bending light visibly.

Unless the aliens had finally worked out how to reverse the polarity of neutron flow, of course.

 

[NorCal Dave]

So, more Meta-material stuff to keep here in this thread for future reference. @Duke posted this in one of the Grusch threads, but I thought it would be good here as well.

DeLong's TTSA had a research contract with the US Army to study the meta-materials they had obtained. TTSA had obtained the meta-materials from DeLong, who in turn had obtained them from Linda Howe, who got them from Art Bell who got them in the mail from somebody. So, we have the US Army looking at Art's Parts:

The Army Combat Capabilities Development Command recently partnered with the To The Stars Academy to study a wide variety of different technologies and materials, most of which sound like they were pulled straight from a sci-fi movie. The cooperative research and development agreement is set to last five years and could ultimately help the Army develop new capabilities for its fleet of ground vehicles.

So, once again a UFO type organization managed to talk the DoD into using them because of the expertise in, well UFOs. This is back when TTSA was still trying to sound more like a science based R&D type company:

"To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science is a company with materiel and technology innovations that offer capability advancements for Army ground vehicles," officials wrote in the agreement, a copy of which was provided to Nextgov. "The [Academy] will share their innovations with the government, who will use its laboratories and resources to characterize the technologies and determine if they have appropriate applications on ground vehicles."

And the Army was interested in their meta-materials:

Specifically, the Army wants to explore a handful of futuristic materials and technologies the group has either studied or has in its possession, including inertial mass reduction, quantum communications, beamed energy propulsion, active camouflage and directed photon projection. The Army also plans to study the "mechanical and [electromagnetic] sensitive" metamaterials—a type of synthetic material that can manipulate light and other waves—the group collected "as part of its field operations."

In the short-term, Army researchers are particularly interested in studying how those metamaterials could improve "camouflage, concealment, deception and obscuration" capabilities of their ground vehicles, Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the Combat Capabilities Development Command, told Nextgov. By manipulating the light waves around a particular object, it's possible for metamaterials to render it virtually invisible.

Unlike Bigelow's BASS and AASWAP, DeLong didn't manage to get any money out of this:

Unlike traditional contracts, cooperative research and development agreements, or CRADAs, are not transactional, so TTSA isn't getting any money from the partnership and the Army won't be directly acquiring any new tech. Rather, the agreement will help the Army expand its understanding of metamaterials and other technologies, and allow TTSA to conduct an in-depth analysis of the materials in its possession, Halleaux said.

At least not directly, but I think in 2019 DeLong was still in the "invest in TTSA" phase, so this would have helped with getting people to invest their money in the company if they thought it was doing R&D work on its meta-materials with the US military. And TTSA would have needed investors as it was paying DeLong $35k for the meta-materials.

What they hoped to learn from the bits of junk TTSA had is a bit unclear. The whole point of the materials was that they were from a UFO, something the Army didn't care about:

Though he called the recent CRADA "one of the more adventurous" partnerships he's worked on, Halleaux was quick to dismiss any claims that the Army was studying "alien technology." TTSA may purport the metamaterials and other tech in their possession came from UFOs, but for the Army, those claims are irrelevant, he said.

Why would the US Army be working with TTSA and Art's Parts:

"Speculation ... as to the origin of materials really to our researchers isn't what matters," Halleaux said. "The reason TTSA was taken seriously is the credentials of the people on their team. These are folks that have backgrounds in industry and backgrounds in materials science and defense work. [They're] serious professionals with respect to backgrounds."

https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-te...tive-camouflage-and-other-sci-fi-tech/160787/

Because, it would seem, people like Elizondo, Eric Davis, Jaque Vallee and Chris Mellon were all part of TTSA at the time.

To date, I'm unaware of anything comeing out of this partnership which makes sense as Art's Parts aren't otherworldly.