Julie Marie Brown
Roswell, N.M. (1996) - Roswell's famous piece of metal, purported to be debris from the alleged 1947 Roswell UFO crash, is really the work of a St. George, Utah, jeweler, according to the research department of the International UFO Museum and Research Center.
Museum officials received the metal fragment in March from Blake Larsen, who had remained anonymous until the claim of the Utah jeweler came to light earlier this month. Larsen received the piece of metal from a friend, the owner of the Rebel Gallery in St. George, Utah, who claimed it had been picked up at a 1947 crash site in Roswell.
Museum officials have been actively seeking to discover if the metal fragment is a piece of UFO or just a regular piece of metal, and now say a positive match between the metal fragments they received and scraps from the Utah studio has been made.
The scrap of metal might have passed for alien metal because of its strange swirling pattern, Randy Fullbright, the jeweler, said in an interview earlier this month.
Miller Johnson, head of the museumıs research department and a board member, was present during testing at two laboratories and followed through on other information received.
During the investigative process, Johnson said he was able to obtain additional fragments from Fullbright.
"A positive match between the museumıs fragment and the Utah jewelers fragments were confirmed," Johnson said Thursday.
Johnson said the layered metal process is an ancient Japanese metal working technique known as "Mokume Gane." The little known technique can be composed of varying numbers of layers. The fragment donated to the museum is 19 layers.
Museum co-founder Max Littell, said the museum was always concerned with finding the truth.
A complete display of the results of the museum's research department is being prepared and will be on display at the museum, 400 N. Main St.
Record Staff Writer