Is this anomalous piece of metal alien? How to prove or disprove your assumption.

You may think UFOs don’t exist. You may even deny the fact, but that’s all you can do about it. Whether they are man-made or alien is a completely different question, one which we have ways to test with full objectivity.

An introduction to the subject

To explain to all the naysayers, a UFO is simply any object seen or sensor-detected in the sky which you cannot identify. In your lifetime, you cannot be certain you know the origin of everything you have seen above you — and those count as UFOs too. At national level, not knowing what buzzes around with impunity in your area of ‘control’ is a concern for aviation safety and also for defence, so finding out matters. The US Congress confirmed the existence of UFOs (UAP) in July 2023.

There are nuances in definition. UAP includes non-objects seen in the sky (meteorological phenomena or sounds in a gas medium, such as sky trumpets) and USO are objects which do not fly in air at all because they are submerged. These definitions then lead to the sub-category of trans-medium objects which appear to move between outer space/air/water or seem to be an object at one point and then phase out to leave no visible physical presence. Yes, the theory extends to apparently leaving our dimension too but let’s stick instead to what we can evidence.

In my down to Earth opinion, scientists are disproportionately more likely to be interested in the themes of popular (or nerd) culture because fiction which sparks the imagination had influenced many of them to take STEM careers in the first place.

At varying levels of seriousness, everyone can name a reported incident, film, television show or book in which items portrayed as having an extraterrestrial origin are found by modern humans, who then wonder at them; Roswell (debris), Roger Leir/Whitley Streiber (implants), X-Files (both), Cartman Gets an Anal Probe (sundry paraphernalia).

Let’s level-up. Scientific discovery is about proving something which no one knew before and having it reviewed, replicated and accepted by the community as reality. It’s like placing the next brick of knowledge on top of a massive mountain of bricks which other people have placed before you, or incrementally expanding the perimeter of light that pushes against the unknown darkness. Sometimes it’s about connecting two discoveries from different specialisations or fields (multidisciplinary) to make something possible which has never been done before. Drill down even deeper and it’s about problem solving. Houston, we do have a problem [to solve], so we must use scientific method to answer it.

PS. My eyesight is shit and it’s taking ages for my ability dog to type this.

For anyone who doesn’t already know, I’ve recently returned from living abroad and have been catching up with old acquaintances. What have you been up to, that sort of thing. Apart from the realisation that everyone’s having kids except me, one of these conversations was about this topic (hence this article) because that person has a pretty broad range of lab access at one of the UK’s top ten universities (4 x mass spectrometers calibrated to test for different things, a Raman Spectrometer, a gene sequencer, an SEM, a radiation lab, a proteomics lab, an internationally respected radioanalytical facility, an optoelectronics lab and even a wind tunnel). With no prior agenda, he invited the self-identified ‘experiencer’ community to send him metal objects which they had reason to believe might be of non-human manufacture. This is what I learned:

No elements are new

There is no information to dispute that all the elements from which you can construct anything already appear on the Periodic Table. In the now very unusual event that a new element is added, this is because one of the 30,000 particle accelerators in the world (usually the LHC, SPS or ISR at CERN, the Tevatron at Fermilab or the RHIC at Brookhaven) has brought it into existence for a picosecond under extreme high energy conditions. In other words, it is not stable enough to use as a structural material. For example, the most recent element is organesson (synthesized 2002, recognised 2015) of which only a couple of atoms were ever made and it has a half life of 0.7 microseconds. Useless, for space travel purposes.

There is no alternative physics

I’ve heard people talk about ‘our physics’ being different from ‘the alien physics’. Well, there is only one set of physical laws and there is observable evidence that they are constant. Even microscopic changes in any of the physical constants would sabotage the way that stars consolidate, stabilise, release energy and do not instantly disperse into their component molecules filling the vacuum of space like smoke. If space-time curvature or the two nuclear forces were in any way variable, infinitesimally stronger or weaker, the Universe would fly apart and freeze or crunch and burn. Astronomers can observe outer space, model mathematically and observe that the laws do not change locally. No one has ever, even once, observed different physical constants. However, the way in which different regions of an expanding Universe have played out might make it appear, incorrectly, that the laws in different contextual situations look different. They’re not. For example, time on the Moon moves faster than time passes on Earth, but this effect is relative to their different masses (space-time or ‘gravity’), consistent with the same Special Theory of Relativity. Basically, there’s a Nobel Prize for Physics waiting for the first person to prove that any alternative physical laws exist.

We can test composition to infer the purpose for which a material was made

Modern aircraft have airframes made from metal (historic aircraft and the RAF Mosquito used wood). These metallic surfaces are usually alloys, as a combination of elements can make best use of the properties of each. Ordinary aviation alloys are fairly cheap to manufacture because they only need to resist comparatively common forces in our atmosphere: The types of stress (tensile, sheer, compressive, fatigue, residual), temperature (heat, cold) and degradation (oxidation, corrosion, pores, abrasion, cracks and rotting).

The elemental composition of a metal can be destruct tested using a mass spectrometer, which ionizes the material. Composition can also be determined using a Raman Spectrometer, which analyses the diffraction of light (the Raman effect), a pattern which differs according to the molecules present. A Scanning Electron Microscope can show properties and spatial variations in material composition and microstructure. For example, if you look at a high definition image of the cross section of an alloy, you can see that the elements do not blend evenly but might instead be a cluster or iron molecules surrounded by clinging carbon molecules, within a different element.

If you need your airframe to resist something more extreme, you can invest time, money and tooling of new equipment to achieve that result. The important thing to realise is that you would not got to all the effort unless you needed to achieve that additional level of performance. You walk down the road to the shop when you could fly in Concord, but that would be overkill in effort to achieve your already achievable intention.

Perhaps your aircraft is likely to experience unusually high temperature. The melting point of magnesium is 650 °C. The melting point of bismuth is 271 °C. The meting point of magnesium and bismuth mixed together in interlaced layers is closer to 900 °C. If you find an alloy with these sort of components, you can be sure it was someone’s intention for that craft to remain structurally sound under extremely high (or low) temperatures. However, if a craft is designed to tolerate temperature extremes (e.g. silica), yet the material permeates heat or cold through to its inside, you can also be sure that this was an unmanned craft (e.g. drone or machine intelligence) as any biological component would not survive the experience.

What else can we infer from a material? Well, if analysis of the material tells you it is designed for very high resistance to stress, that does mean that it has been built to travel within the thicker air of a planetary atmosphere (not exclusively in outer space) and that there was never a ‘warp bubble’ or ‘force’ barrier repelling air resistance and insulating the craft’s surface. Planning against stress could mean it needs to carry an unusually high load or stay intact as it makes sharp turns (2G and above).

High resistance to electrical current might mean the designer anticipated electrical discharge within an atmosphere (not beyond it). Low resistance suggests its purpose was as a conduit or relay component of some kind.

Selecting a material for high resistance to cosmic radiation, particularly gamma radiation, would be essential for travel outside our planet’s magnetosphere or in closer proximity to a star. No one would ever think to protect against this within our atmosphere because only a minor fraction of this radiation ever gets through (as seen in the aurora borealis) and the aircraft would have to carry around a rather impractical lead surface — which would be weightless in outer space but impossible to sustain in the air.

Selecting a material with high resistance to acid might imply that it needs to be able to operate safely in the atmosphere of a planet where it rains sulphuric or another acid (e.g. Venus). Does that happen here? No. So humans would not design for that eventuality.

High resistance to electromagnetism or the ability to disperse it across a structural horizon might suggest partial protection against solar mass ejections or even risking proximity to magnetars, within a couple of hundred thousand miles, which would be an unnecessary precaution on our planet — or it could mean hardening against electromagnetic pulse events (natural or man-made), which would tell us that the material was from an important military asset that anticipated assault.

The possibilities extend beyond this short list.

We can tell from crystallisation whether a metal was made on Earth, in outer space or on a larger or smaller planet than Earth

All metallic elements except for mercury (Hg), gallium (Ga) and caesium (Cs) are crystalline solids at room temperature. The crystalline structure of a solid metal can be viewed using an X-ray diffractometer. When we view these solid metal elements or compounds they are part of on Earth, we see a typical crystalline solidification structure because they have cooled evenly and changed state from liquid to solid in a gravitational context of 1G or slightly over. Would an alien spacecraft be made on Earth? Of course not. If the solid metal had crystalised in either a zero-G context or on another planet where it might be perhaps 2G or more (Jupiter has 2.5G) or under stronger conditions of electromagnetism than we experience on Earth, the crystalline structure would look different in line with the different context of compression. My friend’s theory is that the metal would incorporate a gravitational origin signature, in the same way that a rock can tell you which way the planet’s magnetic field was polarised at the time when it solidified (“Once the basalt cools completely into solid rock, the alignment of the iron minerals is fixed. Thus, basalts preserve a permanent record of the strength and direction, or polarity, of the planet’s magnetic field at the time the rocks were formed.” — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

We have an isotope test to determine whether a metal has been outside the protection of our atmosphere and magnetosphere

You can test if a metal has been exposed to cosmic radiation by measuring the absorption of cosmic ray muons in the metal. The amount of absorption depends on the atomic weight of the metal, with heavier metals absorbing more muons. For example, lead absorbs more cosmic muons than other metals, making it easier to detect. In a material which has withstood cosmic bombardment, you can expect the muon count to be beyond the top of the scale for any sample measured on Earth. As a control test, you can build a cloud chamber (cosmic ray detector) to measure the comparatively much lower rate of exposure on the surface of Earth.

The way to determine how long a material has been exposed to cosmic radiation is by counting the number of isotopes produced by cosmic ray bombardment. Spallation reactions happen when cosmic ray neutrons collide with surface molecules (which can then be compared to internal molecules), causing reactions that fragment the target nucleus. These reactions decrease in number with depth. Testing can also complimented in several ways. There’s cosmogenic nuclide dating, which uses the number of isotopes produced by cosmic rays to calculate how long a material has been exposed to cosmic radiation. Measurable isotope ratios are useful as you can count the number of isotopes and calculate their ratio to other isotopes. Nuclide concentration involves dividing the concentration of cosmogenic nuclides in a sample by the cosmogenic production rate to calculate the surface exposure age (potentially, how long it has been in outer space). In cosmogenic nuclide dating, careful selection of which isotopes to measure involves consideration of half-life, as the isotope should have a long enough half-life to be useful; production rate, as the isotope should have a high enough production rate to be useful; and similar isotopes found in external context, e.g. if there was a surrounding regolith.

We can find out quickly whether organic material evolved on Earth or in a completely separate ecosystem

All animals and plants which exist on Earth (including the more than 99% of species which are extinct) have/had ATCG DNA because we all have a common ancestor — the first living cell from which we evolved and branched ahead. There are over 600 protein markers and polymers that could be used to convey the same instructions in a genome strand but we only use these 4 for the simple reason that our common ancestor only used these 4. Life evolving on a different planet would be spectacularly unlikely to have settled on exactly the same combination as has life on Earth. If an organic material is been sequenced or composition-tested and contains ACTG DNA then it is definitely (caveat to follow) from a species which has evolved on Earth. However, the theory of Panspermia (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe) can be used to argue that it would not be the case if all life on Earth (not just humans but all of it, mushrooms, lettuces, kangaroos) was brought to Earth from wherever ‘aliens’ evolved, e.g. on a comet.

The point is that if you test and find a DNA-equivalent containing either different markers or no double helix, then that would be absolute proof positive that the sample is of extraterrestrial life.

Reluctance

Four Youtube and eight netizens who had claimed in podcasts or in public discussion forums that they were in possession of potentially alien materials which they would dearly like to be tested (implants and crash debris) were approached and invited by email to send a sample for investigation. This offer involved no cost to the owner of the sample and no contract (e.g. surrendering ownership or control of information). The drawbacks were the risk of sending the sample internationally and also that the process would involve the destruct testing of a small part of the sample because that’s what mass spectrometers do, ionize material (convert molecules into charged ions). If anything, a strong financial incentive to the owner is implied as, if an object were to be confirmed as of alien manufacture, it would instantly become one of the most valuable portable assets in the world.

The outcome was that 11 of the 12 podcasters and believers did not respond at all to the letter offering to prove/disprove their material. 1 person did respond and discussed sending the sample in two exchanges but then stopped communicating and nothing was received.

Not quite Eureka

The researcher did receive one metal fragment from an aviation collector in California who did not claim that the material was extraterrestrial but had stated that it was retrieved near the Area 51 air base in southern Nevada, USA. The sample was unusual because it did not show the visual characteristics of metal alloy air frame segments in the owner’s collection.

The outcome was that this metal was indeed not an alloy, but it was also not an exotic material or something exposed to cosmic radiation, just exceptionally refined titanium. Dismissing ‘pig-titanium’ used for other manufacturing purposes, due to the investment in purity, this narrowed down the options to a single aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird, which used titanium to withstand structural instability under the heat generated by traversing from the upper to thicker, lower atmosphere at Mach 3. In contrast with another super-sonic velocity and high altitude aircraft, the U2 spy plane was made of aluminium. This result is a nil-return but it is also evidence that a Blackbird aircraft at some point crashed in Nevada, which we didn’t know.

I have to go now. Doggy needs a biscuit.