Comets

Unlike the other small bodies in the solar system, comets have been known since antiquity. There are Chinese records of Comet Halley going back to at least 240 BC. The famous Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, depicts an apparition of Comet Halley.

As of 1995, 878 comets have been cataloged and their orbits at least roughly calculated. Of these 184 are periodic comets (orbital periods less than 200 years); some of the remainder are no doubt periodic as well, but their orbits have not been determined with sufficient accuracy to tell for sure.

Comets are sometimes called dirty snowballs or "icy mudballs". They are a mixture of ices (both water and frozen gases) and dust that for some reason didn't get incorporated into planets when the solar system was formed. This makes them very interesting as samples of the early history of the solar system.

When they are near the Sun and active, comets have several distinct parts:

• nucleus: relatively solid and stable, mostly ice and gas with a small amount of dust and other solids;
• coma: dense cloud of water, carbon dioxide and other neutral gases sublimed from the nucleus;
• hydrogen cloud: huge (millions of km in diameter) but very sparse envelope of neutral hydrogen;
• dust tail: up to 10 million km long composed of smoke-sized dust particles driven off the nucleus by escaping gases; this is the most prominent part of a comet to the unaided eye;
• ion tail: as much as several hundred million km long composed of plasma and laced with rays and streamers caused by interactions with the solar wind.

Comets are invisible except when they are near the Sun. Most comets have highly eccentric orbits which take them far beyond the orbit of Pluto; these are seen once and then disappear for millennia. Only the short- and intermediate-period comets (like Comet Halley), stay within the orbit of Pluto for a significant fraction of their orbits.

After 500 or so passes near the Sun off most of a comet's ice and gas is lost leaving a rocky object very much like an asteroid in appearance. (Perhaps half of the near-Earth asteroids may be "dead" comets.) A comet whose orbit takes it near the Sun is also likely to either impact one of the planets or the Sun or to be ejected out of the solar system by a close encounter (esp. with Jupiter).

By far the most famous comet is Comet Halley but SL 9 was a "big hit" for a week in the summer of 1994.

Meteor shower sometimes occur when the Earth passes thru the orbit of a comet. Some occur with great regularity: the Perseid meteor shower occurs every year between August 9 and 13 when the Earth passes thru the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Comet Halley is the source of the Orionid shower in October.

Many comets are first discovered by amateur astronomers. Since comets are brightest when near the Sun, they are usually visible only at sunrise or sunset. Charts showing the positions in the sky of some comets can be created with a planetarium program.

Advanced extraterrestrial alien civilization

It is estimated that terrestrial technologies can detect one in hundred asteroids and comets that is in a collision course.

Interestingly, even if we in the earth find some incoming asteroids that will collide with the earth, little we can do. Take the example of asteroid 1950AD. It is about three quarters of a mile in length. It will collide with earth in year 2880. The collision will cause an explosion equivalent to 100,000 megaton. The human race will get wiped out. Knowing this very well, we can do little to protect us. A nuclear missile if sent out to encounter the asteroid will make a zillion scattered pieces and the earth will get bombarded zillion times in different place and the effect will be even worse. We do not have the power to vaporize this asteroid with the entire nuclear arsenal in the earth. A close vicinity nuclear explosion may deflect it if the asteroid is of high density and we know about the asteroid at least two years before it impacts on the earth. There are other evolving theories to neutralize the incoming asteroids but nothing has been tested. On top of that we can detect one in hundred such crashing bodies (comets and asteroids) coming towards us. Many scientists believe we just do not have the technologies to protect us.

But case after case in different parts of the world, there are evidences that comets and asteroids have been neutralized either through deflection or explosion before hitting the earth. Who is doing the protection job deflecting and neutralizing asteroids and comets before they are hitting the earth?

According to some scientists, the asteroid belt is disturbed and many asteroids are colliding among themselves. This causes deflection of these asteroids into the inner solar system with possible collision paths with the earth. If any one of these hit the earth, we are history. We can detect very few of these asteroids. As a matter of fact in many cases we realized that these asteroids and comets have missed the earth by a hair in the cosmic scale.

According to scientists there is some advanced alien civilization that is protecting the earth for a long time and is determined not to let these asteroids collide with earth. If you have a doubt, they suggest look at moon surface that have received zillion asteroids and comets and the moon’s dead surface bear the history in every inch of its surface. No one is protecting the moon or mars for whatever reason.

Energy needed to vaporize a comet or asteroid to protect the earth is far larger than the combined aggregation of all nuclear bombs in different parts of the earth. The extraterrestrial alien civilization is using radiation energy tapped from the Hyperspace through the fermions to neutralize the asteroids and comets.

Scientists getting a clue from this are rapidly looking at the Hyperspace to tap endless radiation energy to neutralize incoming comets and asteroids. This radiation energy can also provide enormous alternative fuel that is cheap, have no nuclear waste and above all intense to perform whatever we want to do.

Looking for aliens in all the wrong places

So why hasn't SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, heard any alien radio signals yet, ask the report authors? The question is best known as "Fermi's Paradox," first posed by physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950, when he asked, "Where are they?" Even a modestly sophisticated alien species could likely colonize every star in the galaxy within 10 million years, Fermi reasoned, based on technologies understood more than half-a-century ago. Ever since, Fermi and his successors have been asking why we haven't heard from any aliens yet.

An artist?s impression of a unique type of exoplanet discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope. A study suggests that such sun-centered planets are the wrong place to look for alien life.

SETI has long searched for signals from aliens in radio transmissions. The focus has been on nearby sun-like stars, which may have life like our own, says astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. The effort has been privately funded since 1994. So far, no alien signals, which some argue calls for a change in direction.

"The need for such reassessment is fueled not only by the failure of SETI thus far, but also by great advances recently made in astrophysics, astrobiology, computer science and future studies," say the New Astronomy report authors. One reason for the failure, they contend, may be that we are looking for the wrong aliens in the wrong part of the galaxy. Just like humanity today, any reasonably intelligent aliens will quickly develop and become dependent on computers, or "machine intelligence," they argue, following a suggestion made by science historian Steven Dick in 2003.

That matters, because, "as almost anyone having practical experience with computers will have experienced, heat is an enemy of computation," they note. So, they argue, since the stars where these computer-dependent aliens arose will slowly be burning up (our sun will turn into a red giant in 5 billion years, for example), the places where extraterrestrials will slowly migrate to, and perhaps build space colonies, is the place where computers are most comfortable. That would be in the cold depths of space at the edge of galaxies, far from the fiery stars.

SETI, Cirkovic and Bradbury charge, is "fundamentally flawed" because it looks for signals from aliens from nearby sun-like stars. "Outward migration of advanced technological species should be taken into account in future practical SETI projects," they write. "The true test here would be to detect signs of astro-engineering efforts at the outskirts of nearby spiral galaxies."

Shostak, of the SETI Institute, agrees that intelligent aliens likely are dependent on computers, or are computers themselves. But the assumption that computational efficiency will drive aliens ever outward, overriding any other goal, is a big one, he says. "It's a clever idea, but more than likely to be wrong."

After all, finding some place cold in space to do computations isn't the biggest problem that aliens will likely face, he says, compared to the energy lost in migrating outside the galaxy. Besides, "who knows what will motivate alien machines?" he asks. "Our knowledge of alien sociology is pretty sparse."

On a more practical level, the challenge for SETI astronomers is the simple fact that radio signals get weaker as they get farther away, limiting how many places we can actually listen to. Our galaxy's edge is loosely at least 25,000 light years away (one light year equals about 5.9 trillion miles), making radio signals from there quite faint.

The real problem is that the Milky Way galaxy contains several hundred billion stars, Shostak adds, so even looking at a million stars constitutes a search of only a tiny fraction of possible homes for aliens. And actually only about 800 nearby stars have been carefully listened to in recent SETI searches, making it a needle-in-the-haystack deal. "It all depends on your guess of the number of broadcast locations in the galaxy," Shostak says. Astronomer Frank Drake, one of SETI's founders, estimated that perhaps 10,000 alien species live in the Milky Way. "That means you have to look at a few million stars to have a reasonable chance," Shostak says.

Still, Shostak says that SETI would be happy to try looking. One thing they likely won't try is broadcasting messages, he says, because the speed of light puts a limit on how fast you can converse. Given that the nearest aliens might be 1,000 light years away, even if we are lucky, "that's long time to wait to hear back 'huh? could you repeat that?'," he says.

Did aliens save planet in 1908?

Members of a Russian scientific team researching the site of the Tunguska meteorite crash of 1908 say they have found remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, report a variety of Russian news agencies.

The object appeared to be a large metallic block, according to the reports. The researchers chipped off a piece of the object and will now test its composition.

One scientist said based on his calculations, the mass of the space object headed for Earth in 1908 was nearly 1 billion tons. He believes the meteorite was blasted by the spaceship at an altitude of 10 kilometers to prevent the destruction of all humanity on the planet.

"I am fully confident and I can make an official statement that we were saved by some forces of a superior civilization," Yuri Lavbin said. "They exploded this enormous meteorite that headed towards us with enormous speed," he said. "Now this great object that caused the meteorite to explode is found at last. We will continue our research," he added.

Lavbin says that the results of this year's expedition give him hope that the Tunguska mystery will be solved before the phenomenon's 100th anniversary. To do this, Russian researchers plan another large-scale expedition to the Eastern Siberia.

The scientific team says the Tunguska event was an aerial explosion that occurred near the Tunguska River in Siberia June 30, 1908. The blast felled an estimated 60 million trees over 2,150-square kilometers. Local residents observed a huge fireball, almost as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. A few minutes later, there was a flash that lit up half of the sky, followed by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows up to 400 miles away.

The explosion registered at seismic stations across Eurasia, and produced fluctuations in atmospheric pressure strong enough to be detected by the recently invented barographs in Britain. Over the next few weeks, night skies over Europe and western Russia glowed brightly enough for people to read by. In the United States, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Mount Wilson Observatory observed a decrease in atmospheric transparency that lasted for several months.

The size of the blast was later estimated to be between 10 and 15 megatons. Until this year members of numerous expeditions have failed to find any remains of the object that caused the event.

The Bermuda Triangle

The "Bermuda Triangle" or "Devil's Triangle" is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States of America, which is noted for a supposedly high incidence of unexplained disappearances of ships and aircraft. The apexes of the triangle are generally believed to be Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The US Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an official name. The US Navy does not believe the Bermuda Triangle exists. It is reported that Lloyd's of London, the world's leading market for specialist insurance, does not charge higher premiums for vessels transiting this heavily traveled area.

The most famous US Navy losses which have occurred in the area popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle are USS Cyclops in March 1918 and the aircraft of Flight 19 in December 1945. The ship probably sank in an unexpected storm, and the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean -- no physical traces of them have ever been found. Another well known disappearance is the civilian tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen carrying bulk molten sulfur which sank in February 1963. Although the wreck of Marine Sulphur Queen has not been located, a life preserver and other floating artifacts were recovered. These disappearances have been used to provide credence to the popular belief in the mystery and purported supernatural qualities of the "Bermuda Triangle."

Since the days of early civilization many thousands of ships have sunk and/or disappeared in waters around the world due to navigational and other human errors, storms, piracy, fires, and structural/mechanical failures. Aircraft are subject to the same problems, and many of them have crashed at sea around the globe. Often, there were no living witnesses to the sinking or crash, and hence the exact cause of the loss and the location of the lost ship or aircraft are unknown. A large number of pleasure boats travel the waters between Florida and the Bahamas. All too often, crossings are attempted with too small a boat, insufficient knowledge of the area's hazards, and a lack of good seamanship.

To see how common accidents are at sea, you can examine some of the recent accident reports of the National Transportation Safety Board for ships and aircraft. One of the aircraft accident reports concerns an in-flight engine failure and subsequent ditching of a Cessna aircraft near Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas on 13 July 2003. This is the type of accident that would likely have been attributed to mysterious causes in the Bermuda Triangle if there had been no survivors or other eyewitnesses of the crash.

A significant factor with regard to missing vessels in the Bermuda Triangle is a strong ocean current called the Gulf Stream. It is extremely swift and turbulent and can quickly erase evidence of a disaster. The weather also plays its role. Prior to the development of telegraph, radio and radar, sailors did not know a storm or hurricane was nearby until it appeared on the horizon. For example, the Continental Navy sloop Saratoga was lost off the Bahamas in such a storm with all her crew on 18 March 1781. Many other US Navy ships have been lost at sea in storms around the world. Sudden local thunder storms and water spouts can sometimes spell disaster for mariners and air crews. Finally, the topography of the ocean floor varies from extensive shoals around the islands to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of the strong currents over the many reefs the topography of the ocean bottom is in a state of flux and the development of new navigational hazards can sometimes be swift.

It has been inaccurately claimed that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the two places on earth at which a magnetic compass points towards true north. Normally a compass will point toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes by as much as 60 degrees at various locations around the World. If this compass variation or error is not compensated for, navigators can find themselves far off course and in deep trouble. Although in the past this compass variation did affect the "Bermuda Triangle" region, due to fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field this has apparently not been the case since the nineteenth century.

The Mysterious Disappearance

One of the most famous stories to ever surround the Bermuda Triangle is the mysterious disappearance of the Naval Air Flight 19.

So what happened?

On December 5th, 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombers left the Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale. They never returned home.

The Avenger bombers contained 14 men, 13 of those were trainees in the last stages of their training along with Lt. Charles Taylor. The five pilots had been recently transferred from the Miami Naval Air Station. Lt. Taylor knew the Florida Keys well but had no knowledge of flying over the Bahamas which was the direction Flight 19 was headed in.

Their mission on that day was for practice bombing at hens and Chicken Shoals fifty-six miles away. Once that was accomplished, the Avengers were to continue on eastward for another sixty-seven miles, then head north seventy-three miles. Following that they would turn southwest and head for home. In other words they were flying a triangular flight path through what would be called the Bermuda Triangle.

At 3.50pm that afternoon a pilot and his flight instructor, Lt. Robert Cox were about to land at Fort Lauderdale. They overheard a radio transmission addressed to someone named Powers. Powers replied, "I don't know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn."

A little later on Lt. Cox managed to establish radio contact with another of the Pilots on the lost Avengers out at sea. Speaking with Lt. Taylor he was informed that Taylor's compasses were not working and he was sure that they were in the "keys", meaning Florida keys, and that he didn't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale. Cox urged him to fly north toward Miami "If you are in the keys."

Taylor was badly mistaken, he in fact was not in the keys as thought. He was in the Bahamas and by taking Cox's advice and flying north he would only go further out to sea. Efforts by Cox and others to establish the location of Flight 19 were hampered by poor communications. At one point Taylor was urged to turn over control of the flight to one of the students, though apparently he did not do so.

As dusk slowly approached Fort Lauderdale realized with great horror that Lt. Taylor and his Avengers had no idea of where they were, they were completely lost. The atmospheric interference with the radio signals got a lot worse at sunset and communication was almost impossible with Flight 19. Lt. Taylor exclaimed that they would fly north-northeast for a short time, then head north.

The continued on with their course changing to veer slightly off to the east when the contact made with Fort Lauderdale at 5.15pm by Taylor. "We are now heading west" exclaimed Taylor as he was overheard addressing his companions and telling them that they should join up; as soon as one of them ran out of fuel, they would all go down together.

The sun sank down on Fort Lauderdale at 5.29pm. Bad weather was moving in from the north and the situation was escalating into a full blown emergency. No one knew where Flight 19's location was and there was much speculation as to where they could be. At 6.00pm reception improved for a short time. Taylor was urged to switch to 3,000 kilocycles, the emergency frequency. Taylor refused to do so for fear he and the other planes would fall our of communication; unfortunately, interference from Cuban commercial stations and the inability of other coastal stations to translate the Fort Lauderdale training signal easily would effectively shut off Flight 19 from the rest of the world.

At one point the ComGulf Sea Frontier Evaluation Center thought it had pinpointed the flight's approximate position; east of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and far to the north of the Bahamas.

The first rescue craft was sent out at 6.20pm. It was a Dumbo flying boat and it soon lost contact with the shore, leading all to believe that they had also lost the Dumbo. The problem turned out to be and iced over antenna.

Within the hour more aircraft joined in the search. The weather was overcast and the seas were reported as rough and turbulent. One flight a Martin Mariner (Training 49) failed to make its scheduled rendezvous and did not answer radio calls. At 7.50pm the crew of a nearby ship reported of seeing an enormous sheet of fire caused by the explosion of an aeroplane. The ship reported of passing through a large pool of oil soon after and not finding any survivors or bodies of the crashed aircraft. They did not try to retrieve any debris from the ocean as weather conditions were at this point deteriorating rapidly making it impossible for any kind of retrieval.

Flight 19 by this time had exhausted their fuel and were assumed to be down. Taylor's last transmission was heard at 7.04pm. The search for the lost Avengers continued on through the rough night and hundreds of planes and ships joined the search the next day.

No trace of the Mariner or Avengers have ever been found.

On April 3, 1946 the conclusion of an extensive Naval Investigation declared that the "flight leader's false assurance of identifying as the Florida Keys, islands he sighted, plagued his future decisions and confused his reasoning...He was directing his flight to fly east...even though he was undoubtedly east of Florida." Taylor's mother and aunt refused to accept this verdict, the Navy set up a panel to review the report. In August this panel announced it could only agree with the original conclusion. Furious, the two women hired an attorney and secured a hearing the following October. On November 19 the Board for Correction of Naval Records retracted the original verdict and officially laid the disaster to "causes or reasons unknown". The Mariner's fate was believed to be from explosion. The Mariner's had a bad habit of blowing up if even the tiniest of sparks were ignited. There is no particular disagreement with this fact.

The Avengers total disappearance would be owing to the rough seas at the time and they were well known to be incredibly heavy. Known through the Navy as "Iron birds" they weighed 14,000 pounds empty. After impact they would of immediately sunk to the bottom; any debris remaining would of been swallowed up by the violent ocean at that time, leaving no trace of themselves to be found anywhere by anyone.

The mistakes and misguided information about the Mariner and Flight 19's disappearance soon began in the early 50's. Stories about "a mysterious place where ships and planes disappeared into" and a "limbo of the lost" caught the public's intrest immediately, the legend of the Bermuda Triangle began and is still carried on to this day.

Taylor is often mistquoted as saying in his radio transmissions that "everything is wrong...strange ...the ocean doesn't look as it should" and "They look like they're from outer space - don't come after me." He in fact never uttered those words. This leads to some seriously silly stories about alien abduction and motherships hovering above the triangle. Even in the move "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" Steven Speilberg documents Flight 19 returning to earth off a large spaceship. It is also often reported that on the day of Flight 19's disappearance the seas were calm and smooth. They were indeed the very opposite!!

In 1991 a newspaper report ran of a salvage ship named "Deep See" finding intact the remains of Flight 19 on the ocean bottom ten miles northeast of Fort Lauderdale. One plane bore the number 28, the same as Taylor's aircraft. But on June 4 graham Hawkes, who had headed the search, concede that further investigation had proved that the craft were not from Flight 19. The numbers on the other planes were different from those on the fabled flight. The Avengers were an older model than the one on Flight 19.

There are in fact many many stories of strange disappearances of both ships and planes either somewhere near or inside the Bermuda triangle - The fact is that 1/2 the time they are not even inside the rough triangle dimensions, and are quite a long way away from it but somehow get their disappearance linked with the Triangle, so far the triangle must have some kind of mysterious ocean powers to allow it to travel all over the world and suck down all sorts of vessels all over the place.

The fact is that accidents happen, for one reason or another, planes crash, boats sink....just look at the Titanic, claimed as "unsinkable" in it's day! The research of Larry Kusche, has dispelled a lot of the untruths about the place. After searching endlessly through newspaper accounts, weather reports and other official documents, Kusche found (as he suspected) that the Bermuda Triangle had no more disappearances than any other section of the world. He has a book out called "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved. You can read more about the stories and how they were twisted and changed to suit the myth and mystery more.

On 4th of April, 1975 Lloyd's of London issued a statement to Fate magazine declaring that "428 vessels have been reported missing throughout the world since 1955" they continued to state that there was no cause to suspect that the Bermuda Triangle was swallowing more ships than any other section of the planet.

A Report on the Investigation of Magnesium Samples From a UFO Explosion Over the Sea in the Ubatuba Region of Brazil

It is widely known that since 1947 many people in many places have reported "flying saucers" and other strange objects in the sky. But the absence of physical evidence such as crashed "saucers" has been considered the best argument against the existence of such UFOs. In fact, it is difficult to recognize the reality of a flying machine so far advanced as to have reduced to near zero the probability of mechanical failure. Major Edward J. Ruppelt, USAFR, in his excellent book, A Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, states that the USAF had never picked up any "hardware" whole "saucers," pieces or parts that could not be readily identified as something very earthly.

Such an unexpected occurrence was reported, at last, near the Brazilian coast. It was said a disc shaped object had exploded over the seashore. Fragments recovered from the explosion were supposed to have fallen, while burning, into shallow waters, which, according to the witnesses, quenched the fire and allowed recovery. I cannot vouch for the story, but only for the identity of the samples received and the details of the investigation that followed. The story of the origin of the samples will be of interest in connection with the results of the chemical analyses which were performed.

On September 14, 1957, Ibrahim Sued, a well known Rio Janeiro society columnist, reported a strange story which startled the readers of his column in the newspaper 0 Globo Under the heading, "A Fragment From a Flying Disc,'' he wrote:

We received the letter: "Dear Mr. Ibrahim Sued. As a faithful reader of your column and your admirer, I wish to give you something of the highest interest to a newspaperman, about the flying discs. If you believe that they are real, of course. I didn't believe anything said or published about them. But just a few days ago I was forced to change my mind. I was fishing together with some friends, at a place close to the town of Ubatuba, Sao Paulo, when I sighted a flying disc. It approached the beach at unbelievable speed and an accident, i.e. a crash into the sea, seemed imminent. At the last moment, however, when it was almost striking the waters, it made a sharp turn upward and climbed rapidly on a fantastic impulse. We followed the spectacle with our eyes, startled, when we saw the disc explode in flames. It disintegrated into thousands of fiery fragments, which fell sparkling with magnificent brightness. They looked like fireworks, despite the time of the accident, at noon, i.e. at midday. Most of these fragments, almost all, fell into the sea. But a number of small pieces fell close to the beach and we picked up a large amount of this material which was as light as paper. I am enclosing a small sample of it. I don't know anyone that could be trusted to whom I might send it for analysis. I never read about a flying disc being found, or about fragments or parts of a saucer that had been picked up. Unless the finding was made by military authorities and the whole thing kept as a top secret subject. I am certain the matter will be of great interest to the brilliant columnist and I am sending two copies of this letter to the newspaper and to your home address."

From the admirer (the signature was not legible), together with the above letter, I received fragments of a strange metal...

The unusual story stirred my curiosity. Ibrahim Sued had never written about UFOs before. My first thought was the whole thing could be a joke or well planned hoax. I tried to convince myself this was the obvious explanation, and to dismiss the matter, but I felt something should be done to clarity the doubts raised in my mind. I had to contact Mr. Sued to take a look at the "fragments" and find the answer I was looking for. I phoned him that same day and ask for a meeting to discuss the matter. He agreed. I arrived at his apartment four hours later. There on the table I saw the samples sent by the unidentified correspondent three small pieces of dull gray solid substance that appeared to be a metal of some sort. Their surfaces were not smooth and polished, but quite irregular and apparently strongly oxidized. Their appearance suggested they might be, if really metallic, pieces or fragments disintegrated from a larger metallic mass or object; in fact, the surface of one of the samples was shot through with almost microscopic cracks, always longitudinal, and even showed on one face a large longitudinal fissure running through almost two thirds of its length, as if that piece had been disrupted under the action of some force. The others did not show many cracks or fissures, but the surfaces of all samples were covered in scattered areas with a whitish material. These whitish smears of a powdered substance appeared as a thin layer. The fine, dry powder was adherent, but could be displaced easily with the nail. It also filled the fissures and cracks on the surface of the first sample. This powder presented some similarity with the whitish powdered cinders on a chunk of burned charcoal as if the fragments had been scorched by some fire or were damaged by too much heat. Two of these samples were later photographed still in their original form.

Mr. Sued said the material appeared to be lead at first sight because of the gray color but I would see it could not be lead, a heavy metal, if I felt the weight of the sample in my hands. He was right. The material was light, definitely lighter than aluminum almost as light as paper. Amazed, I told Mr. Sued I had some friends with scientific backgrounds who might be called in to investigate the samples He said he knew nothing about UFOs and was even convinced they did not exist. He was not curious about the samples and I could take them. Of course, he would like to know the results if something unusual was found in the analysis. I thanked him for his generous attitude, promising to keep him informed, and picked up the samples.

On examining the data I concluded they offered insufficient solid information for a definite conclusion. A few points however, attracted my interest:

(1) Mr. Sued's correspondent seemed to be certain about the accuracy of his observations. He had identified the sighted object as a "flying disc." No more details were given.

This was a good point on his side. In my psychological experience investigating UFO sightings I have learned the reliability of "saucer reports" appears to vary inversely with the detail the observer reports. The hoaxes are almost always marked by an accurate, precise description of detail, so that we feel the witness was obviously drawing on his imagination. In this incident, however, the observer did not present a vivid description of the "saucer" or of its crash. His story is simple, clear and concise, as it would be in a true case. Besides, in a case where everything was supposed to have happened in a few seconds, it is evident no more details could be expected. Apparently the thing was too rapid for the human vision to fix any detail of the object, except its general shape and trajectory.

(2) The man who supplied the samples said the phenomenon was also witnessed by others. This may give credence to his report.

(3) He was not, apparently, one of the so called "saucer cultists." He said be had never heard about "saucer" fragments or parts being found or about a "saucer" crash. A cultist would have a different attitude.

(4) He could be a hoaxer, but a poor one. A good hoaxer would have presented his case in a press conference, to gain publicity for himself. He would never start with a timid letter to a society columnist who ostensibly would not be interested in the matter. Most of all, he would never send the "disc's fragments" in the first letter before knowing Mr. Sued's attitude on UFOs and his possible reaction to the story.

(5) The observer identified the unknown object as a "flying disc." He did not use the popular term "flying saucer," which would be misleading because it is commonly applied to unconventional aerial objects of every conceivable shape, to any thing in the sky that cannot be identified as a common, everyday object. In Brazil the term "flying disc" is used only in connection with disc shaped UFOs unconventional objects other than "discs" having different terms, such as "flying cigars" for anything cylinder shaped, "fireballs" for flying spheres or burning ball shaped objects, etc. We could be reasonably certain the witness really sighted a disc shaped UFO if the study of the "fragments" would produce valid reason to support his report. Anyway, these considerations about the object's shape are points to be stressed, chiefly because 11, details were reported on the object's structure.

(6) The man who supplied the samples was not aware apparently, that the first man to lock down physical evidence of the interplanetary hypothesis of UFO origin, or of the reality of the phenomena, would go down in history. If he was, he would not give away his samples. Such behavior might be understood only if the sender was a mischievous hoaxer, doing what he did on purpose, or if he was really puzzled and did not comprehend the real importance of his findings.