But it wasn't his to pass around, although after a year I guess I will have to concede that I may have made a little too much noise over little or nothing. I am really more reasonable than I have presented myself and tolerant too. It just started to get to me when I saw that picture of a bobwhite. I thought that was a little tacky and disrespectful. From that point everything seemed like the guy was getting mocked. Time to move on to other trouble now and I apologize to anyone in the group who felt I may have been referring to them in my written tirade. I just never really learned how to be a little bit insulting---take car Van Rijn and all--joe

Tinaa,
I found this one (it's 7 meg):
http://www.nss-mic.org/2007/program/ProgramBook.pdf

__________________
Hanlon's Razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Asimov's addition - "Or ignorance."

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage

Thanks JimTKirk but that one was in Hawaii. I was looking for the one in San Diego that Metal Man attended in Nov. 2007.

__________________
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

it ws 06 nov we attended the conference in san diego..

sorry for the date mix up..

Yipes. My brother-in-law was stationed at a (non-existent) SAC base 50 miles from my home during the 1970's. He was on guard duty protecting (non-existent) nuclear-armed B-52 bombers
that were on 24-7-365 alert. I remember seeing (non-existent) B-52s taking off and landing at that (non-existent) base and also flying over the area. We also have (non-existent) Air Force and ANG units train every year at our local ANG base.

tbm

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Paddle faster!! I hear banjo music!!

Apology noted, accepted, under the bridge and movin' on!! Welcome and hope you stay

Pete "not gunna give an intellectual *** whumpin" Eldergill ('cause I can't! heh)

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Incidentally isotope analysis of the aluminium in the sample would prove very little; almost all the aluminium in the universe is Al27, as this is the only stable isotope. So any 'proof' of extraterrestrial origin almost certainly wouldn't come from from the isotope ratio of the aluminium.

Edit; perhaps if Al26 is detected, that would indicate exposure to cosmic rays; alternately, the absence of Al26 might indicate that the sample has never been in space.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

I hope this doesn't lead to another "battle"...it's old so hopefully not. As long as it's being brought up again though, I have a question. Idea? Question.

Something.

It's not likely a meteorite, but that doesn't limit it from falling from the sky. Could falling from a satellite or uber-high altitude airplane cause a lump of aluminum to get hot enough to flow? Or a blow torch? Or somehow get it warm/hot enough and use fast moving air from...(something pressurized maybe, or a wind tunnel) to create the effect of flow?

Would that explain the long, drawn out tear drop shape, flaky edges, and ring like structure in the cross section?

I'm not a metalurgist, but looking at this reminded me of...oh gosh, I think it was in "Deception Point" by Dale Brown. The story was a meteorite was found that turned out to have fossils in it. The people investigating discovered it was a fraud--it was a terrestrial fossil in a rock that had been treated with a blow torch of sorts to make it LOOK like a meteor and placed under the ice where it could be found by the new government satellite.

Anyway. Just a question as I really no nothing about aluminum beyond what's been explained in this thread already. I have no proof or means of replicating any process that could lead to these results. A thought experiment if you will. A hypothetical question.

Edit: Upon second thought I should add the disclaimer that yes, I know Deception Point is fiction but the idea stuck out to me as one that isn't tooooo far out. Ok. Now I'm done!

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None to speak of

Time to loosen up.

My post of that picture was a case of using an illustration in place of words. The words would have been "I find Bob White's claims and speculations about this piece of "alien" metal to be for the birds."

Heck, even metal man showed he got the joke when he wrote a reply following a post that included the photo. His reply included the phrase "a little birdy told me.."

Steve Martin was right. "Comedy...isn't pretty.", especially when one has to explain it.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

That was much to deep for me I guess . . .

For the next time metal man shows up, I want to repeat this (unanswered) question one more time:

According to some Googling, Golka was supposedly given a sample in 2003. Now, I understand that it can take some time to get everything together, but there certainly seems to have been a lot of preliminary discussion on this subject. When are we going to see his official report? When are we going to see a well respected lab confirm his results?

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

According to Annette Montminy, Director of Human Resources at MIT, no one named Robert Golka is on the December employee roster.

__________________
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Is this the guy that has some smelter slag that he claims is of alien origin??? I was on another site years ago and a metalurgist seemed to explain exactly what it was as he apparently cleaned it up everyday.

That is very interesting. Could you give us any more details about that discussion, if possible, please?

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

Here is the latest report on the metal.

http://atsmedia.cachefly.net/images/...aped-metal.pdf

It's a review article of previous tests by an unnamed 'Metallurgist with a Nuclear Engineering background'. In short he concludes it's terrestrial in origin & doesn't recommend further testing. (his terms of reference were pretty tight though).
Poo! I was hoping for a Cr analysis which would prove yes or no if it is of earth origin.
Well he is better qualified than me (I am from a Medical background) so I must respect his superior knowledge. Yet I am amazed that such an unusual Aluminium alloy (no tin etc that emits gamma, neutron and X-ray radiation - the latter focally judging from the dental film images) is not worthy of further testing.
Please correct me if I am wrong and there is nothing unusual about any of this.

Bob White does not come across as a fraud to me but he has expressed an interest in $ on several occasions. If it proved to be not of earth origin he would have his $ and combined with the UFO story probably lots of $ (after all who knows what a UFO is made of?). But even if it proved to be of earthy origin it would still be interesting.

He seems genuine so I hope he thinks of the $ and gets a Cr analysis done.

Sakamura,
First, welcome to BAUT.

Second, maybe the sample is unusual. But an unusual aluminum alloy sample of terrestial origin may not be worth further testing - what is the point? Does one need to determine, for example, that it was some reject material from an industrial process, or someone's weird lab experiment? Testing costs money and time - at this point, what is the point.

By the way, what is a "Cr analysis"? I assume you don't mean chromium, since it was analyzed for that.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Thanks Swift, yes I do mean Chromium, the Cr 53/54 ratio specifically. Sorry for not being very clear. I read that it had been anaysed by two labs (for various elements isotope ratio's) firstly by La Jolla in California whose results for Cr were inconclusive due to lack of sample size and who do not want to do further tests (they kindly did if for free). Secondly by NASA JPL in Pasadena who said they would not do the Cr test unless they knew where it came from. Nasa JSC in Houston said they were interested in doing the Cr test but needed authorisation - as far as I am aware this was not forthcoming. La Jolla said they might revisit the Cr isotope issue but nothing came of it, maybe because the Sr 87/86 ratio came out as 0.711933 +/- 0.000026 highly suggestive of earth origin but as I understand it not proving it as other bits of space debris of proven non earth origin have values higher than this. (Others here I am sure will know much much more than I do about the significance of the Sr 87/86 value).

I got this info from various posts, on a number of sites, by Dr Gibbons who ordered the tests and worked with Bob White as Executive Director for the museum of the unexplained in Reeds Spring for two years where the object was displayed. I cannot find the original lab reports but http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread159762/pg3 sums most of what I have read. Not exactly a High Impact Journal is it but it's to the point.

I agree it would be a waste of time and money testing every bit of unusual looking alloy. If I found a bit at a Motorway service station it would remain there. But if I saw it fall off a UFO which Bob White appears to believe well...