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ROSWELL, BATTELLE, & MEMORY METAL: The New Revelations

 

(originally published Aug 2010)

 

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Recent discoveries confirm the connection between the esteemed Battelle Memorial Institute and the study of extraterrestrial material. This new information helps to substantiate the astonishing truth: In the late 1940s Battelle was contracted by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to study "memory metal" like the debris that was found at the site of a crashed UFO at Roswell, New Mexico. This was first detailed in a widely-read series of articles, available from this site's article archive:

 

Roswell Debris Confirmed as ET: Lab Located, Scientists Named

Roswell Metal Scientist: The Curious Dr. Cross

The Final Secrets of Roswell's Memory Metal Revealed

Scientist Admits to Study of Roswell Debris

 

Some of this information was also related as a concluding chapter in the revised edition of Witness to Roswell by authors Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, released in 2009.

 

It is a remarkable but complex story that continues to unfold. In the intervening year, work by a team of individuals has continued to pursue additional leads on the Roswell-Battelle connection. The results are revealed here for the first time. Critics of the Roswell-Battelle premise will be answered and their concerns about previously-published information will be addressed.

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New findings that help to corroborate the Battelle analysis of ET debris are provided in telling interviews with those who directly knew the involved Battelle scientists. Additional clues are uncovered by a careful examination of the two previously "missing" Battelle Progress Reports from the late 1940s on novel metal systems that were finally uncovered through FOIA. Other findings are made by an investigation of Battelle's Executive Director at the time of the Roswell crash and on Battelle's continuing work on memory metal.

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A MEMORY METAL REDUX

 

The intense interest in this aspect of the crash incident is because it speaks to Roswell's "Holy Grail" – physical evidence. If the crash occurred, the debris must have been studied. It is likely that the "materials of construction" (i.e. the metal-like debris) would have been more easily studied than an entire craft or system. Though we may not now be able to fully comprehend their transport systems, we may be able to more easily understand – and try to replicate – the materials that comprise them.

 

Some of the Roswell crash material was reported by several credible witnesses to have had the ability to "morph" or change back to its original shape (shape recovery). This "intelligent metal" material is today known as Shape Memory Alloy. The best example of this is a material is comprised of Titanium and Nickel and is called "Nitinol". The concept of engineered shape recovery is a thoroughly "post-Roswell" concept. All major work in creating products with "material memory" was performed post-Roswell. And all of this work was initially directed by the US Government. Shape Memory Alloy is distinctly "Roswellian" and mimics in many respects some of the debris at Roswell.

 

And consider this: On the face of it, why would elderly witnesses ever mention such a bizarre thing as "memory metal" in the first place? How many of these rural New Mexicans would have ever heard of "Nitinol" back when the crash happened – or even in later years – when they recounted their stories? What would give these independent witnesses,  who were separated by distance and time, the idea to all simultaneously tell the bizarre story of having seen "morphing metal" debris at Roswell? The very fact that they describe shape-memory metal – without having likely ever been aware of such a thing as Nitinol – is in itself very telling.

 

In summary form, the story about Battelle, Nitinol and Roswell is this:

 

  • In the months immediately following the Roswell crash, the Air Force contracted Battelle Memorial Institute to perform first-ever work on novel Titanium alloys. This included work on development of Titanium and Nickel alloy – the basis for "memory metal" today, and similar to some of the debris reported at Roswell.

 

  • Four Wright-Patterson sponsored technical studies on "memory metal" in later decades cited a 1949 Battelle report on Nickel and Titanium (NiTi) alloy. Nickel and Titanium are used to create "Nitinol" – the premiere "memory metal" on the planet. The fact that the 1949 report was referenced in shape-recovery alloy research years later shows that somehow the Battelle report had a direct application and association to the memory metal subject.  An earlier 1948 report was also uncovered that dealt with similar materials issues.

 

  • The Battelle study was conducted under secret contract and was directed by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Wright-Patterson is the very base to which the Roswell debris was reportedly flown.

 

  • The Battelle study was co-authored by a Battelle scientist who later confessed that he had personally analyzed ET debris from a fallen UFO while at the Institute. That he was a co-author of the Battelle 1949 study was discovered many years after the scientist's confession, when the Battelle reports were obtained under FOIA.

 

  • Wright-Patterson General Arthur Exon confirmed that he understood that some of the Roswell debris included an alloy comprised of "specially processed Titanium" and another metal. Exon said that a battery of tests was performed and that the reports on this are "still around." This mirrors the Battelle work. Another USAF General, George Schulgen, wrote a secret draft memo four months after the Roswell crash on UFOs – including a section on their "Items of Construction." Schulgen mentions "composite construction" using a "combination of metals" using "unusual fabrication methods." Schulgen is speaking of what we today call "intermetallics" – and Nitinol is a perfect example of intermetallics.

 

  • The Battelle scientist who worked on this late 1940's report (who later had confessed that he had analyzed ET debris) was supervised by one Dr. Howard Cross. Dr. Cross (a metallurgist and Titanium expert who worked closely with the Navy where Nitinol was "officially" discovered) was also a secret UFO researcher for the Air Force's Project Blue Book and a secret UFO document called the "Pentacle Memo." He was also called upon to investigate other cases of unknown fallen debris and had unusual access to the heads of the CIA, the Air Force and the predecessor organization to NASA.

 

  • Nitinol's "official" history is false. The year of its discovery is unclear; different reasons were offered as to why it was developed; and there are different explanations given for the circumstances surrounding its discovery at the US Naval Lab. The official "co-inventor" of Nitinol was interviewed by this author and was cagey about several matters related to the development of the material. This co-inventor was found to have been involved in bizarre "Mind over Matter" tests in which a key Naval scientist had recruited psychic Uri Geller to try to get Geller to "bend the metal with his mind." The elderly Nitinol scientist was silent when I mentioned the Roswell impetus for his work and said "I have no comment on that. I am not going to discuss it." He may not have direct knowledge, but he must surely have wondered. He agreed that he was given a Battelle 1949 report with a phase diagram for use in the study of Nitinol, but would not disclose who in military or intelligence gave it to him. It has recently been learned that through theoretical physicist Dr. Jack Sarfatti that Eldon Byrd, the scientist who did the Nitinol Mind-over-Matter experiments with the co-inventor of Nitinol, "got into trouble and nearly got his ass handed to him on a platter by the administration of the Naval Surface Warfare Center for publicizing the laboratory connection with the experiments." Sarfatti made this incredible statement in an e-mail to researcher Bruce Maccabee found archived on the Net dated March 15, 2006.

 

  • Battelle seemed to control the fate of Nitinol after its "discovery" at the US Naval Labs. NASA – working with Battelle – also has been shown to have immediately taken over direction of further "characterization" studies of the material (a fact that Wang's Nitinol co-inventor, William Buehler, complained about in an oral history). Uri Geller himself told me that NASA personnel were also present at the laboratory when the Navy was testing him on Nitinol mind-bending.

 

NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT AN INVOLVED BATTELLE SCIENTIST
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Battelle scientist
Elroy Center

Battelle scientist Elroy John Center was a preeminent materials scientist and engineer. His contributions to the field are now known to have been major. His work is distinguished by over twenty years of discovery in materials and alloys, including breakthrough work in developing analysis techniques. But Elroy Center is also distinguished for two other things: he confessed to having analyzed material from another world while at Battelle. Then incredibly, decades later, he was learned to have co-authored the very Battelle Progress Reports found through FOIA that were suspected to relate to the Roswell crash!

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As a Chemical Engineer and Research Chemist, Center knew that (as General Exon said) the material had "special processing." It was engineered metal that was not from Earth. Center's focus was on developing new techniques for the micro-analysis of novel Titanium alloys which could be the basis for "memory metal." He contributed to an extended phase diagram of Nickel-Titanium. Center's story is told more completely in "Scientist Admits to Study of Roswell Debris" (in the article archives on this site).

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Several new things have recently been learned about Elroy Center, and they are told here publicly for the first time:

As reported previously, Dr. Irena Scott (formerly of Battelle) has said that, in 1992, about a year after Center's death in 1991, a friend of Center's told her that, decades earlier, Center had related to his friend the story of his UFO debris analysis. We can now reveal that this friend has been identified, located and interviewed. The name of the individual who told Dr. Scott the Center story is Warren ‘Nick’ Nicholson. Incredibly we find that Nicholson was himself a Battelle scientist for nearly twenty years, specializing in physics and electronics practice areas. He held Top Secret Clearance, holds several U.S. Patents for novel laser and other designs, and has achieved high recognition for his technical achievements. Though Nicholson was a very young man when Center told him that he had been tasked to undertake the debris analysis – Nicholson's credibility cannot be questioned. He was himself later employed by the same organization that Elroy Center was – and was himself highly awarded. He speaks calmly and with no embellishment. He has nothing to gain from this whatsoever. In fact, Nicholson was sought out by me. He did not "come forward." Understandably, his friend Dr. Irena Scott did not wish to reveal his name to me. Herculean efforts were used to deduce just who the man was who had talked to Elroy Center those decades ago. 

Additionally, Nicholson (who had become interested in UFO study in part due to his talk with Center) later associated himself as an investigator with the civilian research group NICAP. Nicholson exposed the famous Zanesville, Ohio "Barber's Photo" UFO hoax, obtaining a confession from the barber that he had faked the pictures. Nicholson detests falsehood and worked to expose such in the world of UFOs. He is telling the truth about Center. When interviewed by this author, he added much additional information:

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  • Nicholson confirmed the details of what he had told Dr. Irena Scott in 1992: Center had directly and privately told him that he had analyzed a strange metal piece that he did not believe to be earthly and that he understood was from a downed UFO. Center did mention hieroglyphic-like markings.

 

  • Dr. Irena Scott, formerly of Battelle, who first related the Center story (and with whom I have talked) also believes that Nicholson is telling the truth. 

 

  • A current and decades-long Battelle executive, William Jones, the Senior Contracting Officer for Federal Projects at the Institute, was told the same story by Nicholson many years ago. Jones also believes that Nicholson is telling the truth.

 

  • Nicholson was a very curious young man who had interest in cosmic science. He had engaged Center (who had by then already left Battelle) in a talk outside the house that led to a discussion of the possibility of the extraterrestrial. This is when Center cryptically related the details of his encounter with ET debris at Battelle. It is probable that Center – in a weak moment – privately told a young man the ET story because he knew that Nicholson would never be believed if he ever repeated it because of his youth. Center also probably believed that the young Nicholson would never jeopardize Center as he was his daughter's close friend. He was sure that Nicholson would keep the story private. And Nicholson did in fact keep it private until the year after Center died.

 

  • Center said that the material was kept is a secure safe with limited access

 

  • Center seemed lucid and truthful, but was cryptic and brief. Nicholson had no reason to disbelieve him.

 

  • Nicholson (himself a former Battelle "insider") believes that it is most likely that Battelle was engaged in such ET debris analysis. He knows the Institute had a deep relationship with the US Government. It had the proximity to Wright and it had the talent, equipment and resources needed to study the Roswell debris. 

 

  • He says there were other indications that Battelle had been contracted to study UFOs – even into the 1970s. He maintains that a Battelle superior told him that the CIA was still, at that time, involved in secret UFO studies – as was the Institute. 

 

  • One elderly Battelle Project Manager, who worked on Project Blue Book and was still at the Institute when Nicholson was employed there, refused to discuss his work on Blue Book, even though it was many years later and Nicholson had security clearances.


A SCIENTIST'S DAUGHTER IN WONDER
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I have also communicated directly with the family of Elroy John Center. Out of respect for privacy I will say that Center's daughter is highly regarded within a major religious organization and I am loath to question her veracity. She did not come forward, but she was sought out and approached. What she says is stunning and helps to confirm the truth:

 

  • Her father John ("Elroy" was rarely used in the home) did indeed have a very strong interest in UFOs and in things ET.

 

  • Center's interest was so strong that he apparently went out on UFO hunts and even took a black and white photo of a UFO.

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  • The object in the photo her father took appeared to be like a strange "domed disk", hovering over a dam on the Scoto River in Ohio.

 

  • Center had studied Battelle's UFO work on Project Blue Book at the time it was being conducted (although Battelle had not yet been publicly named at the time as a contributor to the Project.) Center's daughter said that the Battelle UFO reports – or copies – were brought to the Center's home, and that her father had reviewed them. She strengthens the idea that (like Battelle's Dr. Howard Cross, Center's boss) select metallurgical scientists were simultaneously involved in UFO study at the Institute.

 

  • Center was visited often at their home by an FBI agent whom she recalls was named "Jack." The subject of their deep discussions: UFOs.

 

  • She was not aware of her father's private communication with her friend Nicholson until many years later. She is disappointed that her father never told her the same story and wonders why – but does not discount that Nicholson is genuinely relating what he was told by her father. 

 

  • She does however recall overhearing one evening what might have provided the explanation as to why she herself was not told. Her father was overheard to say to her mother, while discussing UFO studies: "Whatever you do, don't tell her. She is too curious and excitable."

 

  • After his time at Battelle, Center continued in an emotional and physical "downward spiral" and became a shell of what he once had been.

 

  • Center's daughter, a highly-educated woman herself, holds out the distinct possibility that we are not alone in the Universe and does not find the Battelle scenario improbable, though she still expresses wonder at how it all could be.

 

MORE ON THE CURIOUS DR. CROSS – BATTELLE'S UFO METAL MAN
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Elroy Center reported to Dr. Lynn Eastwood, who in turn reported to one Dr. Howard Clinton Cross. The H.C. Cross story is told more fully here: Roswell Metal Scientist: The Curious Dr. Cross (in the article archive on this site).

 

Cross was a research expert at Battelle, employed there just a few years after the Institute's inception until the mid-1960s. He was a recognized expert in novel alloy development, had a special interest in advanced Titanium alloys, and worked closely with the Office of Naval Research (where Nitinol was developed).


But Cross was no "mere metallurgist." In his strange "dual life" he was also secretly engaged by 

Metalworker

the US Government to conduct UFO studies for Project Blue Book and other studies. He even offered suggestions to the USAF Air Materiel Command on how to deal with the phenomena in his famous "Pentacle Memo." Cross had close working relationships with the CIA's Marshall Chadwell and Fred Durant, NACA/NASA and Wright-Patterson's Chief of Analysis on UFO matters. Cross was once called upon to give his expert opinion on a fallen piece of debris from an unknown object at the request of a US Naval Commander. All the while he was working with people like Elroy Center on alloy development at Battelle.

 

Cross was also insistent on secrecy and privacy. He did not favor Battelle's name being mentioned in the Blue Book report, developing a code-word for it. He even physically snatched his "Pentacle Memo" on UFOs out of the hands of stunned USAF Investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek. (Apparently Cross was also a very intimidating man.)

 

This author interviewed someone who would confirm that fact, someone who actually knew Howard Cross while she was employed at Battelle herself: Ms. Jennie Ziedman. Ziedman was also for some years the personal assistant to Dr. J. Allen Hynek – the Air Force's UFO expert. She was also a CUFOS Board Member. Jennie – a delightful and highly knowledgeable woman – herself provided support to Project Blue Book in the 1950s. She knew many of the involved scientists.

 

Jennie characterized Dr. Cross to me as "frightful." People were actually afraid of him and many got nervous in the presence of Dr. Cross. Cross was known to be physically imposing and this would even show expansively in his actions. He would often bang tables, instilling fear in those around him. This parallels the way that Cross was reported to have physically accosted Dr. Hynek in lunging and grabbing back from him the Pentacle Memo on UFOs that Cross had authored to Wright-Patterson. Dr. Cross gave meaning to the term "mad scientist."

 

And Cross was not someone of whom you would "ask too many questions", because of his authoritative firmness. Cross was brilliant and respected – but alarming and not well-liked. Such a tough and ruthless man would be an ideal asset to the US military and intelligence in pursuit of insight into the crashed craft materials at Roswell. Cross could be assured to control and brow-beat those who worked on the project, keeping everything in line. You did not get a "warm and fuzzy" feeling from H.C. Cross. He was a man not to get too close to – a man who could be entrusted with many secrets.

 

Phil Klass, the infamous and now deceased UFO arch-skeptic, was aware of Jennie Zeidman's work at Battelle. Incredibly, even he theorized that Battelle would have been an extremely likely place to which such crash debris would be taken. He commented on it in the 1990s in his SUN newsletter: "If Battelle scientists did analyze the Roswell debris, their reports might still be classified "Top Secret" and Zeidman could not be told due to lack of the required security clearances." Klass perceptively continued, "SUN suggests that the General Accounting Office (GAO) which is investigating the Roswell crashed saucer claims pursue Battelle." The GAO never did.

 

Zeidman, who was at Battelle in the early 1950s, believes that it is possible that certain individuals were involved in ET analysis at Battelle. She stated: "During the 1940s and 1950s Battelle was surely one of the premier metallurgy research facilities in the world. Battelle was well established as a trusted and respected facility for Top Secret work including the Manhattan Project. Its staff included top metallurgists, welding technology experts, physical chemists and fuel application specialists. The supposition that Battelle analyzed Roswell UFO artifacts is a simple and obvious theory. William of Occam would have approved." Many years later, Jennie conducted interviews with some elderly Battelle scientists from the time period. She said that to her surprise, though, none would admit to such ET analysis and seemed sincere. But Klass himself answers this with his comment that some were not told "due to lack of required security clearances." And perhaps Jeannie did not consider the obvious: maybe the scientists she talked to simply lied to her.

 

It is likely that only a very few at Battelle were engaged in such ET debris work. The "core group" (which included H.C. Cross) may have had it confirmed to them by Wright that the material was from a UFO crash. Others may have been told it was of Soviet origin – and only suspected its off-earth origin. Still others may never have had any actual exposure to the material, but only "picked up" on the work of those that did. They executed work (in areas like memory metal) even though they did not realize the real impetus for their research.

 

CLUES FROM BATTELLE'S PROGRESS REPORTS
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The Battelle reports (Progress Reports I and II) were initially believed to have been "missing" due to Battelle, Wright and the Defense Technical Information Center not being able to find them despite repeated attempts. In 2009, reporter Billy Cox initiated a request for both reports. After many months and reminder inquiries, the 60-year-old "DOD Restricted" documents were located, reviewed for release, and sent to Billy. Some of the report content was incomplete and illegible. In addition to the stunning fact that both of the previously missing Battelle reports were co-authored by Elroy Center (who confessed to ET debris analysis) several other things were distilled from the reports:

 

From Battelle's "Second Progress Report" (Contract AF No. 33 (038)-3736) we learned:

 

  • Battelle had suddenly – after the Roswell crash – undertaken to perfect melting and "metal mixing" techniques and to create purity levels for Titanium never before attempted (ultra-high purity Titanium is required to make memory metal).

  • Elroy Center was applying his new techniques for micro-analysis of novel Titanium alloys.

 

  • First-ever attempts at alloying Titanium with Nickel and other metals were made, including an expanded Titanium-Nickel "Phase Diagram" – the recipe for memory metal.

 

  • The report examines other Ti alloys that were later investigated by Wright-Patterson for shape-recovery potential (including TiZr)

 

  • "Elongation" and "Minimum Bend Radius" tests were performed, indicating possible interest in morph-potential. Wright's General Exon recounted to author Kevin Randle similar tests being conducted on the Roswell material.

 

  • One of the report's authors (Lynn Eastwood) had as his boss Battelle's UFO-involved Dr. Howard Cross. Eastwood supervised Elroy Center, confessor to the crash.

 

Some months later, Billy Cox also obtained Battelle's previously missing "First Progress Report" through FOIA requests:

 

From Battelle's "First Progress Report" on "Research and Development of Titanium Alloys" (Contract AF 33 (038) 3736) we learned:

 

  • The work of the First Progress Report was similar to that of the Second. First-time-ever work on characterization, melting, purification and diagramming of novel Ti alloys were conducted.

 

  • The report's cover letter is signed by L.W. (Lynn) Eastwood, whose direct superior was UFO-involved Dr. Howard Cross. Eastwood supervised Elroy Center, who confessed to debris analysis.

 

  • The report was done at the request of one J.B. Johnson, Chief of the Metallurgy Division at Wright Field in 1947. J.B. Johnson was supervised by Major General L.C. Craigie, Director of USAF R&D and the Engineering Division. Craigie's personal pilot (Ben Games) was interviewed by this author and by reporter Billy Cox in 2008. Games states that he had personally flown Craigie to Roswell Army Air Field immediately after the crash, and then flew him to visit with President Truman.

 

  • Johnson appears to have facilitated the delivery of the metal ingots for the Battelle study, and to have directed the submission and order of the Progress Reports. Johnson's behind-the-scenes involvement indicates that these studies were of high priority and urgency.

 

  • Elroy Center's work on Titanium purity (essential to make memory metal) is amplified upon by scientists Mallett, Thomas and Griffith. They cite the work of one E.J. Chapin of the Metallurgy Division of the Naval Research Laboratories where Nitinol was later said to have been developed.

 

  • A major discrepancy is found in the report, appearing in the following: "The present data do not justify further investigation of binary Titanium-Germanium or Titanium Nickel alloys." However, this was not the case. In Battelle's Second Progress Report, we find that work was indeed continued on Titanium-Nickel alloy, to include feverish work on an extended "phase diagram", methods for melting Titanium, developing purification and micro-analysis techniques, etc. This is more than curious and it seems to indicate that Wright-Patterson in fact was hell-bent on having the work continue. In fact, results of these continued studies appeared in its next report for Wright under Wright's direction and insistence.

 

WHY NO MENTION OF ET?
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I have been taken to task by some who naïvely believe that such reports would have a direct mention of ET artifacts. That is not the way such science would ever work. Science reports that directly mention ET would never fall into civilian hands. And the Battelle studies that have been discussed here are not ones that were done on the actual debris itself. They are 'extrapolated studies' that were performed based on what was learned prior about the material.


Somehow it was learned from the Roswell debris that specially-processed, highly-purified Titanium – in composite with other metal like Nickel and Zirconium – could exhibit the

observed and desired Memory Metal effect. Its use would be applied in our flying machines, just as it was with ET. Wright's General Exon said very similar things.

 

And of course they would hide and parse out this work in secret, folding it into existing R&D at places like Battelle. Some working on this would know a little, some a lot, some nothing at all. Some would wonder. Over the decades, institutional memories would fade and wink out. Those originally involved passed on.

 

They were using terrestrial materials and techniques to understand new alloy dynamics. These Battelle Progress Reports represent the beginnings of study on how to translate what was learned prior about the Roswell memory material into applications for defense and aerospace. The information was artfully "folded into" existing aero-metals research to obfuscate and confuse the real impetus of these studies – Roswell. Boring technical reports would serve as the perfect guise – they would "blend in" the ET research with ongoing development of our own avionic and aeronautic materials work. Later the application of memory metal was extended to civilian applications (as found in bendable eyeglasses and in medical devices).

 

BATTELLE'S DIRECTOR PROVIDES UFO INSIGHT?
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Clyde Williams was the Executive Director of Battelle at the time of the Roswell crash and also during Battelle's participation with the USAF on the Project Blue Book UFO study. Williams was very close to Dr. Howard Cross, Battelle's exotic alloy metallurgist and secret UFO researcher. Clyde Williams was also very interesting for several reasons:

 

  • Williams must have given the ultimate approval for Battelle participation in government UFO studies, as they had conducted for Project Blue Book. As Cross's boss, he must have been aware of Cross' continued involvement in working with various US military and intelligence agencies on the UFO phenomenon.

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UFO

  • Williams sat on the Board of Directors of the RAND Corporation in the 1940s and 50s, while simultaneously serving as the Executive Director of Battelle. RAND is a government think-tank that, like Battelle, was at the time highly involved in UFO research. See "Deep Secrets of a UFO Think Tank Exposed" (in the article archive on this website) to learn more about RAND's deep association with UFO study.

 

  • Williams was very close with Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling. In a private letter it was discovered that Williams beseeched Pauling in the early 1950s (during the very time of Battelle's involvement in government UFO studies) to lend his expertise on the subject of "Intermetallics." Williams wanted Pauling to visit him to discuss how Pauling could apply his breakthrough analytical techniques to novel intermetallics development. Nitinol and Shape Memory Alloys are the best examples of the "intermetallic" system. (Again, General Schulgen referred to such composite metal systems when discussing the "Items of Construction" of UFOs.) It was discovered by this author that Pauling was also a secret UFO investigator and had performed private analysis and research of the UFO phenomena. More about this can be learned by reading "UFOs and Vitamin C: Linus Pauling's Flying Saucer Secret" (in the article archive on this website).

 

  • Williams had a personal interest in Intermetallics as well as other Roswell-relevant materials. A January 28, 1949 report shows sudden and urgent interest in Titanium Optimization, Super High Temperature Heat Resistant Materials, Super-Tough Lightweight Alloys, Titanium Zirconium (a potential shape memory alloy) and on Nickel manipulation at high temperatures (Nickel combined with Titanium can create Nitinol). Of course, such interests may well result from "normal" aeronautical research, but the areas of interest – and the timing 18 months after the crash – also sound distinctly "Roswellian." But of course it also makes complete sense that any work on the Roswell debris would be skillfully "folded into" existing military research on "traditional" aeronautical or naval engineering projects of the time.

 

  • Williams was especially close to Major General Harold E. Watson, the Commanding Officer of the USAF ATIC. A 1950 document shows that Watson retained Williams to assist on a Russian intelligence-gathering project of grave import to national security. The seminal "Project Grudge" USAF study was prepared for General Watson, which he reviewed and approved. Just a little later, Battelle itself was retained by the USAF to contribute to Project Blue Book and other UFO studies.

 

BATTELLE'S MEMORY METAL WORK CONTINUES
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Though today Battelle has expanded its suite of services beyond metallurgy, they remain active in the discipline. Battelle operates six of our United States National Laboratories, and they remain very close to US military and intelligence agencies. Battelle often works through these National Labs, or through Universities, to continue work on novel alloy development, including on Nitinol and other memory metals. Battelle has published on Shape Memory throughout the intervening decades. Treatise titles have included: "The Development of Melting and Casting Procedures for Nitinol"; "NASA Special Report: 55-Nitinol Properties and Applications", and "The Preparation of Modified Nitinol Alloys." Nitinol co-inventor William Buehler complained in an oral history that right after they did their work on the material at the Naval Lab, "Battelle took it back" and worked with NASA on "further characterization studies."

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Some of this memory metal work is done offshore in less-visible Battelle labs in locations such as Geneva, Switzerland. In the following document, we see the Institute is still working on novel binary Titanium alloys – six decades after Elroy Center's Progress Reports. Interestingly, in the study linked to below, they are seen trying to optimize alloyed Titanium without the use of Nickel (as found in Nitinol) to achieve a shape-memory effect:

 

BATTELLE IN GENEVA

 

ANSWERING THE CRITICS
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Some of the critics of the Roswell-Battelle connection show that their "knowledge" of materials engineering – and the history of science – go about as far as consulting Wikipedia. Others, however, have brought up specific technical and historical issues about memory metal work that I am happy to address. Some of the criticisms – and their answers – appear below:

 

Work on "Memory Metal" Material Was Being Conducted Well Before Roswell, As Early as the 1930s


This is probably the most common objection leveled against my thesis. It is also

fundamentally incorrect. Critics point out that such metal systems as AuCd and CuZn were observed as early as the 1930s to have transition or elasticity properties. But truth is that there was no "memory metal" in the 1930s. There are fundamental things that these critics do not seem to understand:

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  • The simple fact is that since man began forging metal by fire, the state of metal was known to be "changeable" or "pliable." That however, is not "Shape Recovery" or "Shape Memory." These critics often have a problem comprehending technical meaning.

 

  • Critics also mistake metal "elasticity" "malleability" and "flex" with true "Shape Memory." The terms are not interchangeable. These other alloy examples offered by skeptics are simply not reflective of Nitinol's properties and characteristics. They do not represent – then or now – "memory metal" technology. Only Nitinol (and its newer relatives) returns to its original shape as an "intelligent" or "adaptable" metal. It is the "Cadillac" of Shape Memory Alloys. Any prior observation of pseudo-elasticity, transition or malleability in other materials has no relation whatsoever to Nitinol. Such material features were at the time ignored or merely viewed as a byproduct or lab curiosity.

 

  • Additionally, Nitinol requires the introduction of energy to create the morphing effect. Other examples offered of earlier metals systems do not work in this way.

 

  • Comparing such materials as AuCd to Nitinol is like comparing a stone tablet to a computer – they are frankly not even within the same universe. And the proof of this is that only Nitinol and post-Nitinol-like alloys are today used in aero, medical and other applications. The examples offered by critics never found any major future use, as did Nitinol. And these inferior metal systems mentioned by critics never received the continued and intense scientific attention within research circles as does Nitinol (and its alloy relatives) today.

 

  • Only the Nickel-Titanium metal systems ever got the attention of US military.

 

  • Only the Nickel-Titanium system explored by Battelle was seminal to Shape Memory work – and was later even cited in Wright-sponsored research on memory metal.

 

  • And I challenge the critics to demonstrate where earlier metal systems such as AuCd or CuZn could ever do (or were ever intended to do) what real shape-recovery does: Bend, twist or batter the material into any shape and make it return with tremendous force instantly to its original shape – remembering its original form. Because that is what Nitinol does. That, my critic friends, is the definition of Shape Memory Alloy. The sorry examples offered up by skeptics such as 1930s AuCd or CuZn metal systems that were fallen upon by Europeans become laughable relative to what true "memory metal" means. And the skeptics do not like this:

 

  • The fact remains that Shape Memory Alloy research is a distinctly post-Roswell development. Subsequent memory metal work by the US Government cited the late 1940s Battelle Progress Report to Wright-Patterson that Elroy Center helped author. It is as simple as that.

 

  • Shape Memory Alloy research is a formalized discipline within Materials Science and Engineering. The metal systems mentioned by critics have nothing to do with that discipline. They bear no relation to the subject. By contrast, Nickel and Titanium (Nitinol) have everything to do with the discipline of Shape Memory research.

 

  • The very concept of shape-recovery, the understanding of its potential value and the application of such material, came only after 1947 – not before. The history of science confirms this, despite what skeptics would like to maintain. There is simply no way of getting around it.

 

I will make my point graphically for the skeptics. Examples of material systems offered by them will never be able to do this:

 

"NASA MORPHING METAL PROJECT" VIDEO

 

Titanium is Not a "Mystery Metal", and Work on it Was for "Normal" Aeronautical Metals Applications

 

Some have suggested that I "overplay" and "mystify" the metal Titanium. What they fail to realize is this: Titanium was specifically mentioned by Wright-Patterson's General Arthur Exon as a specially processed alloy found within some of the Roswell debris. And not coincidentally, specially melted and ultra-highly purified and alloyed Titanium is required to make Nitinol. Exon likely did not know that "specially processed Titanium alloy" is needed to create Nitinol, and his mention of it is telling.

 

Secondly, Titanium is an extraordinarily expensive metal even today. Prior to 1948, high-performance steels and aluminum were the preferred defense metals. An Air Force report in the Spring of 1947 stated that Titanium could be useful for aerospace applications – but its cost was considered prohibitive. But still, for some reason, the military interest in Titanium spiked in the years immediately following 1947. Technical papers on the metal spiked as well, according to the Industrial Arts Index. As Encyclopedia Britannica noted, "After 1947, Titanium changed from a laboratory curiosity into an important structural metal."

 

I am obviously well-aware that Titanium was used "terrestrially" for many years prior. It is of course not (in and of itself) a "mystical" material. But when it is specially processed (as General Exon said) and "fabricated in an unusual composite" (as General Schulgen said of some UFO metals) it can do some amazing things. The sudden and urgent interest in Titanium – purifying it, melting it, diagramming it, alloying it, testing it – and pouring $2.5 Billion into its development and application in one decade (1948-1958) is remarkable. It is frankly unprecedented in the history of materials science. The mention by Exon of the material, the timing of its sudden and intense study by Battelle so close after the crash, and the amount of money expended on its exploitation in the 10 years after the crash are things that simply cannot be ignored.

 

Skeptic Tom Printy says that my mention of Battelle's UFO-involved metallurgist Dr. Howard Cross and his early "feeding" Titanium information to the Navy (where Nitinol was "officially" created) was overstated. Printy points out that the "Titanium Symposium" sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in December of 1948 (and which Cross helped to organize) was an open symposium whose proceedings became public – and that there was no "covert" agenda. Printy is right. Titanium – or symposiums on it – were not in and of themselves by any means "unusual."

 

But what Printy does not know – and what is "unusual" – is that the Opening Letter of that very Titanium Symposium was signed by a very revealing individual: Rear Admiral Thorwald Solberg. T.A. Solberg was the Chief of Naval Research in the late 1940s. This is where Nitinol was to be invented. But – like his friend Battelle's Dr. Cross – he was a metallurgist who was also a secret UFO investigator.

 

We see, in an April 1949 US Navy document, the report of a sighting near White Sands Proving Ground. The document came via the "Chief of Naval Research", who was Thorwald Solberg. In the very year that they were holding a Titanium Symposium, Solberg was working on the UFO mystery. Here is the document:

 

SOLBERG DOCUMENT

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Incredibly, the document details the sighting of a UFO at White Sands that year by none other that C.B. Moore, the very Charles Moore who decades later became a shrill Roswell debunker for the Air Force declaring it was a Mogul balloon!

 

Why did metallurgists employed in Top Secret capacities like Cross and Solberg also have such deep involvement with UFOs? Skeptics do not wish to answer this fundamental question: why the hell are metallurgists doing deep-study of Flying Saucers? The answer is of course because there had to be those "in the know" with top clearances who studied the materials of construction of the craft.

 

The Ratio of the Nickel-To-Titanium Found in Nitinol is Not the Same as Found in the Battelle Report

 

I have never claimed that Nitinol itself is the Roswell debris. What I maintain is that the military development of the concept of Shape Recovery Alloys resulted from the discovery of the memory metal found at Roswell.

 

Nitinol represents our best attempt at replicating the debris at Roswell – and some of that debris contained novel Titanium alloys that were specially processed, as found in Nitinol. It is a distinction that I have made that has been consistently ignored by skeptics.

 

Critics say that the approximate 50/50 ratio of Titanium to Nickel that is found in Nitinol is not the same as the ratio of the Titanium and Nickel system used in the Battelle Progress Report studies of the late 1940s. But again, I am not maintaining that the material at Roswell was identical to Nitinol.

 

That said, critics would do well to note that the latest advances in Nitinol-related research are in fact using Titanium and Nickel in widely varying percentages, and sometimes include the addition of varying ratios of other elements to achieve the memory metal effect. An excellent example is shown in a 2008 paper by Dr. Glen Bigelow of NASA Glenn Research Center: "Effects of Palladium Content on Shape Memory Alloys." Shape memory is being achieved with Nickel, Titanium and the addition of Palladium at a level of 15% to 60%. A combination of as low as 34% Nickel and as high as 60% Titanium (with the inclusion of a rare earth element) achieved shape recovery. This was demonstrated by a recently filed Patent Application "NiTi Alloy Composed of Nickel, Titanium and at Least One Rare Earth Element" (J Carlson, et al.).

 

The Battelle-Roswell Connection is a Conspiratorial Case of "Connecting the Dots"

 

The critics say that I "connect dots" where none should be drawn. They say that all of this information offered reflects individual data points that have been mixed together to paint a picture of a conspiracy. Unto them I quote Shakespeare: "While you here do snoring lie, open-eyed conspiracy doth take."

 

You must be sharp to discern the tangled web that has been woven. No document you will ever see will outright declare that ET metal is here. Instead, one must carefully examine the contracts, connections and context of Shape Recovery research to understand its relation to Roswell. Like a sleuth, one must "back-track" the emergence of shape-memory metal. If one does this by studying its history, the documents that are available to us and the testimony of those involved – the truth becomes evident. It was astronaut Edgar Mitchell who said that the material had been in the hands of a quasi-public think tank of former military that had the required expertise and resources. Does he speak of a place like Battelle?

 

THE MEANING OF THE METAL
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The Universe is not carved in stone. Existence can be shaped. The morph requires composite construction. It needs something to "morph with." It also requires the introduction of energy. Matter then has the potential to change state. The lesson of the ET metal – and the morphing UFO – is that our world is less rigid than we know. Things like space, time and matter are infinitely more flexible than we can yet imagine.

 

There is a "plasticity" to reality that shows that matter is not immutable. This is necessary for interstellar flight. The Morphing Metals demonstrate this fluidity. And the psychic experiments that were performed by the Navy on Nitinol show that there is also a relationship to be discovered about the mind and its interface with such adaptable, intelligent material. What Roswell's "changing metal" means is that we must change our understanding of energy and the states of matter.

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