Project Blue Book file: Trinidade Island, 16 Jan 1958

ROB MERCERI
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March, 1960
Physical Evidence ...
(Continued (mOl poge 1)
home. There, on a table, was the sample
sent by the unknown correspondent.
The particles wefe dull grey. solid and
appeared to be m e tallic. They were rough
find irregular, with scattered whitish
areas on the surface produced by the
deposit of a thin layer of a powdered
substanc e which could easily be removed
by the application of a fingernail.
Dr. Fonles picked up one of the frag-
ments. Sued watched him, told him that
at first sight he might think the stuff
was lead , as i t had that appearance,
but that it couldn't be, because of its
weight. Fontes noted that the stuff was
lighter than aluminum-almost as light
as paper.
Dr. Fontes then told Sued that he had
friends in sc ien tific work whom he would
like to examine the material and Sued
agreed, s aying he wasn't interested in
the subject of VAO, but that he would
like to know the results.
Before beginning the analysis proce-
dure, Dr. Fontes weighed the possibility
that the stuff could have been SUbmitted
by a crackpot or publicity hound. He
deduced that if either premise were true,
the man had used pretty poor judgement
in submitting the material to Sued, who
had never exhibited any interest in UAOs,
and who was a society columnist. There-
fore, the man must have been sincere
and had sent the stuff to the only man
in the public eye that he could think of.
In hi s fully documented report, Fontes
staled th at ordinarily he would have sent
someone to Ubatuba to more thorou ghly
investigate the incident, but inasmuch as
he had the stuff in his hand s, he decided
to conduct a scientific analysis.
For the analysis, which he knew would
have to be meticulously carried out, Dr.
Fontes sub mitted a part of the sample
to the Mineral Production Laboratory, a
division of the National Department of
Mineral Production-a Brazilian govern -
ment lab. Fontes was introduced to Dr.
Pfeigell, the chief chemist, by a friend.
Pfeigell was at the time engaged in spe -
cial work with pla stics, turned it over to
Dr. David Goldsch eim, one of his assis -
tants who , after studying the material,
said they could be the fragments of a
meteorite. Dr. Pfci gell didn't agree , be -
cause of the light weight of the substance,
and perso nally conducted a test using
phosphomolydic acid to determine whe-
ther the substance was metal. It was.
He the n decided on a spectrographic an-
a lysis.
The official anal ys is of the substance
was made by chief chemist of the Spectro-
graphic Section of the IVlineral Production
Laboratory, Dr. Luisa Maria A. Barbosa.
Her report reads as follows: "Bulletin
THE A. P. R. O. BULLETIN ~
No. 15 001," dated September 24, 1957,
"Spectrographic an al ysis of unknown ma-
terial. Protocol: 571 / 57. Origin: Ubatuba,
Sao Paulo. Sendcr: Dr. Olavo Fontes.
The sample recei ved included two frag -
ments of meta llic appearance, grey color,
low den s ity, and wcighing:, each one,
approximately 0.6 gr. Report of the an-
alysis of one of the fragm ents: The
spectrographic analysis showed the pres -
ence of magnesium (l\'Ig) of a high degree
of purity and absence of any other m e-
tallic element." Unquote. Signed, Luisa
Maria A. Barbosa, Chemist-Technologist
" N".
The analysis was made with a large
Hil gcr Spectl·ograph. Fontes, expecting
a more detailed report, questioned Dr.
Barbosa: Fontes: " Your analys is showed
the presence of mag nes iu m of a high
degree of purity, and absence of any
other metallic elemen t. Righ t?" Barbosa:
" Yes. I found all common and uncom-
mon spectrum lin es of the clement m ag-
nesium. There was no other meta llic
clement in thc sample, not even the so-
called 'trace elements' usually detected
in the m eta llic samples."
In order to overcome a ny la ck of basic
data, and to obtain a better evaluation
of the pattern fo und, Dr. Fontes dec ided
to request a second spectrographic an-
alysis of the materi al, which was made
on 24 October, 1957, utilizin g the sa me
Spe ctrograph.
Elson Teixeira, a former chemist at
the Labora tory who had worked there
for 15 years, did the seco nd ana lysis.
He plann ed also a quantitative spectro-
graphic analysis, to determine conc en -
tration of a ny impurity, but the unex-
pected absence of impurities of any kind
made a second analysis unn ccessa ry.
A third spectrographic analysis of the
material has been done. The Brazilia n
Army, after I-.e<lring about the case, dis-
patchcd Major Roberto Caminha to talk
to Dr. Fontes, wh o turned over a sample
of the material to the Army on t he 4th
of November. Dr. Fontes was not in-
formed of the r esults of the test.
A small samp le of the material wa s
sent to the Laboratory of Crystallography
at the Geology a nd Mineralogy Division
of the National Department of Miner al
Production, by Dr. Fon tes. Dr. Elysiaro
Tavora Filho, a well-known scientist,
famous in Brazil for his pioneer works
in Crystallography since 1949 , supervised
the X-Ra y diffraction analysis. Examina-
tio n of the material by X-Ray diffraction
showed that the substanc e was mag-
nes ium , apparently absolutely pure. Pro-
fesso r Ta vora sent one of his assistants,
Dr. Augusto Batista , to th e l'vIineral Pro-
duction laboratory to request a careful
re -examination of the spectrographic
plate.
Tavora then decided to make a com-
plete study of the powd er diffraction
Page 3
pattern of the malerial by the Powder
mcthod, using a powder camera of the
Debye-Scherrcr- Il ull type. The analysis
revealed that the substance was pure
magnesium, and the only "impUI'ities"
was magnesium nydroxide (Mg (01-1)2).
It was not, evidently, in the original
metal, appearin g as nn effect of the
explosion and fall of the bUl'ning mag-
nesium fragments through the atmos-
phe re and into the sea.
A Geiger counter and an Atomic Scaler
were used to determine whether the frag-
ments r eg istered a ny extraordinary
a mount of radiation . No abnormal amount
was found.
This, t he n, concluded the tests which
Dr. Fontes obtained on the sam ple of
meta l.
The most pure ma g nesium refined is
99.9 % , and such complex and tim e -
consu ming operations are required that
thi s final product, although still exhibit-
ing so me impurities, is more costly than
gold. It cannot be produced for industrial
a pplication, and is used for special uses,
suc h as to be employed as a "standard"
of purity, or for research purposes in
the unders tanding of the fundamental
properties of metals.
However, the purest magnes ium ever
pr oduced on eart h still ha s impurities
which could be id enti fied in the spectro-
graph ic analysis. The Uhatuba samples
showed none.
The AST M standard of purity for mag-
nes ium (A STM 4-0770) shows, in the
spectrographic analysis, the following
impurities: Ca , 0.1 %, and traces of AI,
ell , Fe and Si.
In other words, the magnes ium in the
s::mples an a lyzed, which wa s absolutely
pure, rcprese nts something ou tside the
range of prescnt-day technolo gical de- _
velopmen ts of our sc ience. On the ba s is
of this study, it is hi g hly probable that
th e meta lli c ch unk s picked up on a beach
ncar Ubatuba, Sao Paulo, arc really frag-
menls of a flying di sc.
The obje ct which exploded above the
bcnch at Ubatuba, Brazil wa s made of
100% ma g nesium, which is not within the
technology of our times . APRO rests its
case.
(Editor' s Kote: The documented report,
plus spcctrographie film , X-Ray diffrac-
tion analysis film and Dr. Barbosa's re-
port and the chemist's report , are on
file at APRO' s headquarters.)
Don't Miss ...
the full story of APRO's attempt to get
th e facts abou t physical evide nce to the
public; repercussion s , phone·tapping, an-
onymous warnings, etc. "Expert" at-
tempts to id e ntify magnesium as con-
ventional space probe project. .. MAY
ISSUE, APRO BULLETIN.