Symposium on unidentified flying objects: hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, second session, July 29, 1968.

120
1957.
The
story
of
its
discovery
is
contained
in
chaper
9
of
the
Great
Flying
Saucer
Hoax,
written
by Dr.
Olavo
T.
Fontes.
Briefly,
several
small
metallic
fragments were
recovered
by
some
fishermen
near
the
coastal
town
of
Ubatuba,
Sao
Paulo,
after
they
saw what
they
described
as
a
brillant
explosion
of
a
flying
disc.
Some
of
the
fiery
fragments were
extinguished
in the
water near
the
shore,
where
they
were
recovered.
Fontes
acquired
three
of
the
fragments
that
weighed
less
than
a
tenth
of
an
ounce
each,
and had
one of
them
analyzed
at
the
MineralProduction
Laboratory
in
the
Brazilian
Agriculture
Ministry.
The
re-
sults
of
the
first
analysis
was
that
the
substance
was
magnesium
of
an
unusually
high
degree
of
purity,
and
that
there
was
an
absence
of
any
other
metallic
element.
On
the
basis
of
the
first
examination
a
second
spectrographic
test
was
conducted,using the
utmost
care
and
the
most
modern
instruments.
The
second
report
was
again
marked
by
references
to the
"extreme
purity"
of
the
sample.
Even
impurities that are
sometimes
detected
due
to
contamination
from
the
carbon
rod
used as
an
electrode
were
absent.
A
further
test,
using
X-ray
diffraction,
failed
to
turn
up
any
other
metallic
component.
One
of
the
pieces
was
flown
to
California
and
was
analyzed.
I
have
the
report
here.
They
used neutron
activation
analysis
and
discovered
a
total
of one
-tenth
of
1
percent
of
other
metallic
elements
than
magnesium, 500
parts
per
million zinc,
that included
zinc,
which
is
interesting,
and
small
amounts
of
barium
and
strontium.Certainly
this
metal
is
of
extraordinary
purity,
certainly
far
beyond
the
capacity
of
fishermen at
Ubatuba
to
produce.
What
could
be the
use
of
such high
-purity
magnesium
in
the con-
text
of
a
spacecraft?
One
clue
lies
in
its
crystalline
structure.
It
is
close
packed hexagonal
structure,
and
is
in
this
regard
similar
to the
high
-strength
metals beryllium
and
titanium.
Hexagonal
crystals
havebut
one
slip
plane,
and
this
tends
to
make
them
brittle
but
strong.
One
of
the reasons
for
slip
along
crystal
planes
is
that
local
im-
perfections
in
the
crystal,
or
foreign
atoms,
create lines
of
stress
con-
centration
that
move
rapidly
through
the
crystal,
producingdeformation.
If
these imperfections,
or
dislocations,
could
be
eliminated,
the
theo-
retical
strength
of
the
crystal
lattice itself
might
be approached.
This
strength
is
on
the order of
millions
of
pounds
per square inch for
any
materials.
Carefully prepared
I/
4
-inch
diameter
glass
rods, etchedto
remove
microscopic surface cracks
and
then
laquered,
have
withstood
stress
of
250,000 psi
for
1
hour.
Fused
silica
fibers
have
been
stressed
to
2
million
psi.
Thus,
foreign
atoms
within
a
crystal
lattice
are focal points for
dis-
locations—points of
stress
concentration
where
the
crystal
lattice itself
tears
and
slips.
We
can imagine
that
a high
-purity crystal, free
ofsurface
and
internal imperfections,
would
achieve fantastic strengths.
Indeed, with the advent of iron whiskers,
and boron
fiber
reinforced
composites
we
are already approaching
some
of
these strengths,
butonly for extremely small diameter
fibers.
Should, by any good
fortune, further samples of
UFO
material be
found, there
may
be further clues that would spur on
research into
high-strength materials,
and perhaps give us hints of
how
to achieve