[ISCNI*Flash thanks Deon Crosby and Rebecca Schatte for contributing to this story.]
On Sunday, March 24, 1996 a man brought what he claimed was a piece of debris from the Roswell crash site to the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. The small metal object, shiny and roughly triangular in shape, was presented in a frame with a glass cover.
The donor, a Roswell resident whose name has been withheld, said he received the object in its frame from another man who also remains anonymous. The second man said he had framed the object after it was given to him for safe-keeping by yet another man, the GI who allegedly picked the object from the ground while assisting with the cleanup of an unusual crash site in July, 1947. That crash site has become the centerpiece in the so-called Roswell Incident, thought by many people to have been the military recovery and subsequent cover-up of a vehicle from another world.
The first news story about the object appeared in the Roswell Daily Record on Friday, March 29.
The metal object was presented to Max Littel at the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell. Littel emphasized to the press and all inquirers that the identity of the original GI was not known, and the identities of the other two men involved would be withheld for their own protection and privacy. A letter accompanying the framed object said the donor was giving the object to the museum "for their use, display or any other purpose known or unknown from this date in perpetuity."
On Friday, March 29, the local sheriff and Max Littel took the object to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro for testing. An X-ray fluorescence spectrometry test was performed on the material and indicated the presence of two elements, silver and copper. According to a followup story in the Roswell Daily Record on Sunday, March 31, the object contained about 85% silver and 15% copper on one side, and pure silver on the other side. In a statement issued by Max Littel, the object was described as having silver on each side with copper in the middle, much like a modern silver coin. Littel said that the total thickness of the metal was less than that of a dime.
The lab that performed the tests was a geology lab that does not specialize in metallurgy. Final results of their testing will be issued in a few days, Littel said, after which further tests might be performed elsewhere.
Although no unknown substances were found in the metal, that does not rule out the possibility that it is extraterrestrial, since silver and copper are basic elements that can occur on other planets.
"When they went to the moon they didn't find anything new," Littel said. "The elements they came back with were elements we have here on earth."
According to nuclear physicist and noted UFO researcher Stanton Friedman, silver and copper are too soft to be used as structural materials, but they are both excellent conductors of heat and electricity and might have some special function in an unusual aircraft.
Friedman said he hopes the piece will be tested again by a commercial lab. "You want to go to a testing lab that does precision testing for courts," Friedman said. "Because basic composition is interesting, but that is only a small part of the story and you don't really know what the smaller parts are. To find that out you need to go to a commercial lab."
Friedman also said the next step to identifying the piece is to track it back to the original owner, who is alleged to be a soldier stationed in Roswell in 1947. Littell said the museum is in the process of doing that.
"We are going backwards and trying to find the source," Littell said. "We need to get back to the GI and have him say, 'Yes, I smuggled it out.'"
The museum has already sent pictures of the metal to Jesse Marcel, Jr., a physician in Montana who says he was shown samples of the crash debris at the age of 12 by his famous father, Major Jesse Marcel Sr., the intelligence officer at Roswell Army Air Field in 1947.
ISCNI*Flash will continue to follow this developing story.
Original file name: .CNI - Roswell Metal 3.31
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