Roswell 1947 - mass media

Analysis of metal fails to refute claims of crash

Jason Bunch
Staff Reporter

Wherever it came from, somewhere along the line it fell down and went boom. Analysis of the piece of metal reportedly linked to the alleged 1947 Roswell UFO crash reveals that the sample was part of a larger object that did indeed suffer some kind of disaster. "It obviously came from a larger piece and the way it came from there was from a catastrophic event," Analyst Chris McKee said. "What that really means, I have no idea. It could be from an explosion, it could from a crash." The piece, which was turned into the International UFO Museum and Research Center March 24 by an anonymous source, was tested last week by McKee at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. Initial results revealed that the sample was composed of silver and copper, but a written report lists traces of sodium, aluminum, silicon, iron, chromium, sulfer and chlorine as also present on the piece.

According to McKee, the origin of those elements is unknown. "It could just come from handling or soil, we didn't clean the sample or anything so we have no idea what was on the surface," McKee said. Since the components of the piece are all natural elements, and could be found throughout the universe, the composition of the metal does not provide proof one way or another about what crashed in 1947."It doesn't really help decide whether it is extraterrestrial or not," McKee said. One thing is for sure though, it did not come directly from the weather balloon experiments known as Project MOGUL that the United States Air Force claim is responsible for the crash. According to Max Littell of the UFO Museum, Charles Moore, a member of the team that designed and worked on Project MOGUL, was at the test in Socorro. "He said it was not a part of the balloon, and he worked on the project before it was even known as MOGUL," Littell said. "It could have been part of extra instrumentation attached to it, but it wasn't part of the balloon, nor was it part of its inner-workings." Although the findings are promising, Littell noted that there is still no conclusive evidence that what crashed in the desert all those years ago was a UFO. "There are still a lot of 'could bes' and 'maybes' but no absolutes in this yet," Littell said. The next step in verifying the origin of the piece is tracking it back to its original owner. Littell said that the museum is currently working toward that end.