Is the government actually hoarding things that scientists can’t identify in a Nevada building?
What do you make of a structure in Las Vegas filled with unidentifiable metals? The New York Times released a bombshell piece on Saturday (Dec. 16) indicating that the US Department of Defense (DOD) supported a $22 million UFO investigation program between 2007 and 2012. Three discoveries were incorporated in the tale that were designed to wow readers:
1. Many high-ranking government officials think aliens have visited the planet Earth.
2. Military pilots have captured footage of UFOs that appear to outperform all known human aircraft, shifting direction and speeding up in ways that no fighter jet or helicopter could ever do.
3. The government stores metals and other materials thought to be related with UFOs in a complex of facilities near Las Vegas.
Points one and two are strange, but they aren’t very convincing on their own: Many intelligent people believe in extraterrestrial visitation, and pilots occasionally witness bizarre occurrences in the high atmosphere that are explained by things other than space aliens, such as weather balloons, rocket launches, or even solar eruptions.
But point No. 3 – those structures full of alloys and other materials – is a little more difficult to dismiss. Is there a Department of Defense storehouse full of extraterrestrial materials?
“They have, as we stated in the story, some material from these things that is being investigated so that scientists can uncover what accounts for their incredible capabilities, this technology of these items, whatever they are,” said Ralph Blumenthal, one of the Times report’s writers, on MSNBC. Blumenthal said, “I don’t know what the materials are.” “They have no idea. They’re looking into it, but it’s a chemical they haven’t seen before.”
But here’s the thing: the chemists and metallurgists who spoke with Live Science – all of whom are experts in recognizing strange alloys – don’t believe it.
Richard Sachleben, a retired scientist and member of the American Chemical Society’s panel of experts, told Live Science, “I don’t believe it’s possible that there are any alloys that we can’t detect.” “What’s my take on it? That’s simply not feasible.”
Alloys are metal alloys made up of different types of elemental metals. They’re quite common – in fact, they’re more prevalent on Earth than pure elemental metals, according to Sachleben – and extremely well known. Brass is a mixture of metals. Steel is as well. Even the most naturally occurring gold on the planet is an alloy of elemental gold and other metals such as silver or copper. [Eight Crucial Elements You’ve Probably Never Heard Of]
May Nyman, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Oregon State University, told Live Science, “There are databases of all known phases [of metal], including alloys.” Simple procedures for determining metal alloys are included in such databases.
Nyman believes it would be quite easy to figure out what an unknown alloy was comprised of if it occurred. Researchers employ an X-ray diffraction technique to study crystalline alloys, which are ones in which the atoms in a combination create an ordered structure, according to Nyman.
“”When X-rays pass through a well-ordered material, they diffract [change shape and intensity] – and from that diffraction [pattern], you can receive information that tells you the distance between the atoms, what the atoms are, and how well-ordered the atoms are,” Nyman explained. It teaches you all there is to know about the arrangement of your atoms.”
The procedure is slightly different for noncrystalline, amorphous alloys, but only slightly.
“These are all pretty typical processes in research laboratories,” Nyman explained, “so if we had such weird metals, we could take it to any university where research is done and they could tell you what components are in it and something about the crystalline phase in a few hours.”
Sachleben was in agreement.
“We haven’t found any alloys in a warehouse that we can’t figure out what they are. It’s actually quite simple, and any decent metallurgical graduate student can do it for you “he stated
Nyman believes that if metals were to fall from a strange plane, forensics studies would swiftly answer many questions about the plane. [These Sightings Have Never Been Solved: UFO Mysteries]
“Has the hunk of metal altered in any way?” Nyman remarked. “That’s the type of thing I’d be asking if I were a scientist. Maybe there’s some analysis that can take you to where the metal was mined, or what country utilizes that specific alloy, or anything like that, if it has to do with world politics and we want to know where the metal originates from.”
According to Nyman, if the plane came from space, it would leave telltale traces in the metal, such as space debris and ionization (changes in the electrical charges of the substance’s atoms).
Even if a previously unseen chunk of alloy did fall to Earth from space, Nyman and Sachleben agreed that it wasn’t likely to have come from an alien craft. In reality, alloys that travel through space, such as those found in typical nickel-iron meteorites, impact the planet on a frequent basis, according to Sachleben, leaving behind obvious indications. The rare-Earth elements left behind in specific geological formations in the Earth’s crust helped us identify the meteor that killed out the dinosaurs.
While Blumenthal did go on cable news and suggest the alloys were unidentified mysteries, fueling conjecture, that is not what his report indicated. The following is the complete quote from Saturday’s article:
“The corporation [engaged in DOD research] altered facilities in Las Vegas to store metal alloys and other materials that… Unidentified aerial phenomenon have been retrieved, according to program contractors. Researchers also looked at those who claimed to have suffered bodily impacts as a result of their experiences with the items and looked for any physiological abnormalities. Researchers also spoke with military personnel who had reported odd aircraft sightings.”
There’s no indication in this remark that the alloys themselves are exceptional in any way. All the Times said was that DOD researchers entrusted with uncovering strange UFO evidence gathered some metal, interviewed some persons who claimed to have had strange encounters with it, and concluded that it was UFO-related.
Blumenthal wrote in an email to Live Science about these metal alloys, “We printed as much information as we could verify. I’m afraid I can’t go much farther.”
As for whether there’s an explanation at least for the metals themselves, Sachleben said: “There are not as many mysteries in science as people like to think. It’s not as if we know everything; in fact, we don’t. However, we know enough about most things to know what we don’t know.”
