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ORNL Synopsis: Analysis of an Aluminum Specimen

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office · 10 pages · text from the file's own layer

This synopsis was prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). It reports on an analysis of drill shavings and a small bulk piece from a metallic specimen claimed to be linked to an unidentified phenomenon over central Ohio around 1995. Chemical assays, microscopy, computed tomography and gamma spectroscopy showed a conventional near-eutectic aluminum-silicon casting alloy that had cooled slowly and gave off no radiation. The report concludes the specimen is ordinary terrestrial industrial metal with no evidence of exotic origin.

Synopsis: Analysis of a Aluminum Specimen7
3.4 Gamma spectroscopy: No unusual signal emissions — Gamma spectroscopy results indicate no
radioactivity emitted by the metal flake material. Background spectra were acquired for count times
almost 50% longer than the samples. The resulting spectra were compared to background and
found to be indistinguishable from background spectra when count time normalization was applied.
No radioactive emissions were detected in any sample. Figure 7 shows the results from one of
the metal flakes, which is representative of the other metal flake spectra. This is consistent with
expected behavior of a typical aluminum casting: it does not radiate on its own.
Cu Fe, Mn Pb Si Mg Electron
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 6. 15 kV electron beam, bulk sample. (a) Backscatter and (b) False-color X-ray denoting the major phases.
(c) Quantitative X-ray mapping of the major and minor elements.

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Report, from the aaro collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 10 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.